THE WORKS 



ALFRED LORD TENNYSON 




k;i» 



Xlr-^S. 






Copyright, 

By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 

1891. 



Photogravures by A. W. Elson & Co., Boston. 



T, Y. Crowell & Co., Bookbinders, Boston. 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

In Memoriam 7 

The Lover's Tale 137 

Ballads and other Poems : 

Dedication 192 

The First Quarrel 193 

RizpAH 201 

The Northern Cobbler 209 

The Revenge: a Ballad of the Fleet . . 219 

The Sisters c . 227 

The Village Wife ; or, the Entail . . . 238 

In The Children's Hospital : Emmie . . . 248 

Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice . 254 

The Defence of Lucknow 255 

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham . . . 263 

Columbus 271 

The Voyage of Maeldune 280 

De Profundis: 

The Two Greetings 290 

The Human Cry . . . » 292 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Sonnets : 

Prefatory Sonnet to the "Nineteenth 

Century " 293 

To THE Rev. W. H. Brookfield .... 294 

Montenegro 295 

To Victor Hugo 296 

Translations, etc. : 

Battle of Brunanburh 297 

Achilles over the Trench 303 

To Princess Frederica on Her Marriage . 305 

Sir John Franklin 305 

To Dante 306 



IN MEMORIAM A. H. H. 



OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. 



Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace. 

Believing where we cannot prove ; 

Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 

Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 

Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
He thinks he was not made to die ; 

And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

Thou seemest human and divine. 

The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 

Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 



IN MEMORIAM, 

Our little systems have their day ; 

They have their day and cease to be : 
They are but broken lights of thee, 

And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 

We have but faith : we cannot know ; 

For knowledge is of things we see ; 

And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness : let it grow. 

Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well. 

May make one music as before, 

But vaster. We are fools and slight ; 
We mock thee when we do not fear : 
But help thy foolish ones to bear ; 

Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me ; 

What seemM my worth since I began ; 

For merit lives from man to man. 
And not from man, O Lord, to thee. 

Forgive my grief for one removed, 

Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, and there 

I find him worthier to be loved. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

Forgive these wild and wandering cries, 
Confusions of a wasted youth ; 
Forgive them where they fail in truth, 

And in thy wisdom make me wise. 

1849. 



I. 



I HELD it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 

But who shall so forecast the years 
And find in loss a gain to match ? 
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 

The far-off interest of tears ? 

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, 
Let darkness keep her raven gloss : 
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, 

To dance with death, to beat the ground, 

Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
The long result of love, and boast, 
" Behold the man that loved and lost, 

But all he was is overworn." 



10 IN MEMORJAM. 



II. 

Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the under-lying dead, 
Thy fibres net the dreamless head, 

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 

The seasons bring the flower again, 

And bring the firstling to the flock ; 
And in the dusk of thee, the clock 

Beats out the little lives of men. 

O not for thee the glow, the bloom. 
Who changest not in any gale. 
Nor branding summer suns avail 

To touch thy thousand years of gloom : 

And gazing on thee, sullen tree. 

Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
I seem to fail from out my blood 

And grow incorporate into thee. 



III. 

O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, 

O Priestess in the vaults of Death, 
O sweet and bitter in a breath. 

What whispers from thy lying lip? 



IN MEMORIAM. 11 

"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run; 

A web is wov'n across the sky ; 

From out waste places comes a cry, 
And murmurs from the dying sun : 

"And all the phantom, Nature, stands — 
With all the music in her tone, 
A hollow echo of my own, — 

A hollow form with empty hands." 

And shall I take a thing so blind. 

Embrace her as my natural good ; 
Or crush her, like a vice of blood, 

Upon the threshold of the mind? 



IV. 

To Sleep I give my powers away ; 

My will is bondsman to the dark ; 

I sit within a helmless bark, 
And with my heart I muse and say : 

O heart, how fares it with thee now, 

That thou should'st fail from thy desire 
Who scarcely darest to inquire, 

"What is it makes me beat so low?" 

Something it is which thou hast lost. 

Some pleasure from thine early years. 
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, 

That grief hath shaken into frost ! 



12 IN MEMORIAM. 

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 
All night below the darken^ eyes ; 
With morning wakes the will, and cries, 

"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." 



V. 



I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin 

To put in words the grief I feel ; 
For words, like Nature, half reveal 

And half conceal the Soul within. 

But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
A use in measured language lies ; 
The sad mechanic exercise, 

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 

In words, like weeds. Til wrap me o^er, 
Like coarsest clothes against the cold : 
But that large grief which these enfold 

Is given in outline and no more. 



VI. 

One writes, that *' Other friends remain," 
That " Loss is common to the race " - 
And common is the commonplace. 

And vacant chaff well meant for o:rain. 



IN MEMORIAM. 13 

That loss is common would not make 
My own less bitter, rather more : 
Too common ! Never morning wore 

To evening, but some heart did break. 

O father, wheresoever thou be. 

Who pledgest now thy gallant son ; 
A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 

Hath stiird the life that beat from thee. 

O mother, praying God will save 

Thy sailor, — while thy head is bow'd, 
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 

Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 



Ye know no more than I who wrought 
At that last hour to please him well ; 
Who mused on all I had to tell. 

And something written, something thought ; 

Expecting still his advent home ; 
And ever met him on his way 
With wishes, thinking, '' here to-day," 

Or ** here to-morrow will he come." 



O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, 
That sittest ranging golden hair ; 
And glad to find thyself so fair, 

Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! 



14 IN MEMORIAM. 

For now her father's chimney glows 

In expectation of a guest ; 

And thinking " this will please him best," 
She takes a riband or a rose ; 

For he will see them on to-night ; 

And with the thought her colour burns ; 

And, having left the glass, she turns 
Once more to set a ringlet right ; 

And, even when she turn'd, the curse 
Had fallen, and her future Lord 
Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford, 

Or kiird in falling from his horse. 

O what to her shall be the end ? 

And what to me remains of good ? 

To her, perpetual maidenhood, 
And unto me no second fnendt 



VII. 

Dark house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long unlovely street, 
Doors, where my heart was used to beat 

So quickly, waiting for a hand, 

A hand that can be glasp'd no more — 
Behold me, for I cannot sleep, 
And like a guilty thing I creep 

At earliest morning to the door. 



IN MEMORIAM, 15 

He is not here ; but far away 

The noise of Ufe begins again, 
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain 

On the bald street breaks the blank day. 



VIII. 

A HAPPY lover who has come 

To look on her that loves him well, 
Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, 

And learns her gone and far from home ; 

He saddens, all the magic light 

Dies off at once from bower and hall, 
And all the place is dark, and all 

The chambers emptied of delight : 

So find I every pleasant spot 

In which we two were wont to meet, 
The field, the chamber and the street, 

For all is dark where thou art not. 

Yet as that other, wandering there 
In those deserted walks, may find 
A flower beat with rain and wind, 

Which once she foster'd up with care ; 

So seems it in my deep regret, 

O my forsaken heart, with thee 
And this poor flower of poesy 

Which little cared for fades not yet. 



16 IN MEMORIAM, 

But since it pleased a vanished eye, 
I go to plant it on his tomb, 
That if it can it there may bloom, 

Or dying, there at least may die. 



IX. 

Fair ship, that from the Italian shore 
Sailest the placid ocean-plains 
With my lost Arthur's loved remains, 

Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. 

So draw him home to those that mourn 
In vain ; a favourable speed 
Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead 

Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn. 

All night no ruder air perplex 

Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright 
As our pure love, thro' early light 

Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 

Sphere all your lights around, above ; 

Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; 

Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, 
My friend, the brother of my love ; 

My Arthur, w^hom I shall not see 
Till all my widow'd race be run ; 
Dear as the mother to the son. 

More than my brothers are to me. 



IN MEMORIAM, VJ 



X. 



I HEAR the the noise about thy keel ; 
I hear the bell struck in the night : 
I see the cabin-window bright ; 

I see the sailor at the wheel. 



Thou bring\st the sailor to his wife, 

And travelled men from foreign lands ; 
And letters unto trembling hands ; 

And, thy dark freight, a vanished life. 

So bring him : we have idle dreams : 
This look of quiet flatters thus 
Our home-bred fancies : O to us. 

The fools of habit, sweeter seems 

To rest beneath the clover sod, 

That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 

The chalice of the grapes of God ; 

Than if with thee the roaring wells 

Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine ; 
And hands so often claspM in mine, 

Should toss with tangle and with shells. 



18 IN MEMORIAM, 



XI. 

Calm is the morn without a sound, 
Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 
And only thro' the faded leaf 

The chestnut pattering to the ground : 



Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 

And on these dews that drench the furze, 
And all the silvery gossamers 

That twinkle into green and gold : 

Calm and still light on yon great plain 

That sweeps with all its autumn bowers^ 
And crowded farms and lessening towers, 

To mingle with the bounding main : 

Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
And in my heart, if calm at all, 

If any calm, a calm despair : 

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 

And waves that sway themselves in rest, 
And dead calm in that noble breast 

Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 



IN MEMORIAM. 19 



XII. 



Lo, as a dove when up she springs 

To bear thro^ Heaven a tale of woe, 
Some dolorous message knit below 

The wild pulsation of her wings ; 



Like her I go ; I cannot stay ; 

I leave this mortal ark behind, 

A weight of nerves without a mind, 

And leave the cliffs, and haste away 

O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, 

And reach the glow of southern skies, 
And see the sails at distance rise. 

And linger weeping on the marge, 

And saying ; " Comes he thus, my friend? 
Is this the end of all my care ? " 
And circle moaning in the air : 

" Is this the end ? Is this the end ? " 



And forward dart again, and play 
About the prow, and back return 
To where the body sits, and learn 

That I have been an hour away. 



m IN MEMORIAM. 



XIII. 



Tears of the widower, when he sees 
A late-lost form that sleep reveals, 
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels 

Her place is empty, fall like these ; 

Which weep a loss for ever new, 

A void where heart on heart reposed ; 
And, where warm hands have prest and 
closed, 

Silence, till I be silent too. 

Which weep the comrade of my choice, 
An awful thought, a life removed, 
The human-hearted man I loved, 

A Spirit, not a breathing voice. 

Come Time, and teach me, many years, 

I do not suffer in a dream ; 

For now so strange do these things seem, 
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears ; 

My fancies time to rise on wing, 

And glance about the approaching sails, 
As tho' they brought but merchants' bales, 

And not the burthen that they bring. 



IN MEMORIAM, 21 



XIV. 



If one should bring me this report, 

That thou hadst touched the land to-day, 
And I went down unto the quay. 

And found thee lying in the port ; 

And standing, muffled round with woe, 
Should see thy passengers in rank 
Come stepping lightly down the plank, 

And beckoning unto those they know ; 

And if along with these should come 
The man I held as half-divine ; 
Should strike a sudden hand in mine, 

And ask a thousand things of home ; 

And I should tell him all my pain, 

And how my life had droop'd of late, 
And he should sorrow o'er my state 

And marvel what possess^ my brain ; 

And I perceived no touch of change, 
No hint of death in all his frame. 
But found him all in all the same, 

I should not feel it to be strange. 



22 IN MEMORIAM, 



XV. 

To-night the winds begin to rise 

And roar from yonder dropping day : 
The last red leaf is whirPd away, 

The rooks are blown about the skies ; 

The forest crack'd, the waters curPd, 
The cattle huddled on the lea ; 
And wildly dash'd on tower and tree 

The sunbeam strikes along the world : 

And but for fancies, which aver 

That all thy motions gently pass 
Athwart a plane of molten glass, 

I scarce could brook the strain and stir 

That makes the barren branches loud ; 
And but for fear it is not so, 
The wild unrest that lives in woe 

Would dote and pore on yonder cloud 

That rises upward always higher, 

And onward drags a labouring breast, 
And topples round the dreary west, 

A looming bastion fringed with fire. 



r 



IN MEMORIAM, 23 



XVI. 

What words are these have falPn from me? 
Can calm despair and wild unrest 
Be tenants of a single breast, 

Or sorrow such a changeling be? 



Or doth she only seem to take 

The touch of change in calm or storm ; 

But knows no more of transient form 
In her deep self, than some dead lake 

That holds the shadow of a lark 

Hung in the shadow of a heaven ? 
Or has the shock, so harshly given, 

Confused me like the unhappy bark 

That strikes by night a craggy shelf, 
And staggers blindly ere she sink? 
And stunn'd me from my power to think 

And all my knowledge of myself; 

And made me that delirious man 
Whose fancy fuses old and new. 
And flashes into false and true, 

And mingles all without a plan? 



24 IN MEMORIAM, 



XVII. 



Thou comest, much wept for : such a breeze 
Compeird thy canvas, and my prayer 
Was as the whisper of an air 

To breathe thee over lonely seas. 

For I in spirit saw thee move 

Thro^ circles of the bounding sky, 
Week after week : the days go by : 

Come quick, thou bringest all I love. 

Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, 
My blessing, like a line of light. 
Is on the waters day and night. 

And like a beacon guards thee home. 



So may whatever tempest mars 

Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark ; 
And balmy drops in summer dark 

Slide from the bosom of the stars. 

So kind an office hath been done, 

Such precious relics brought by thee ; 
The dust of him I shall not see 

Till all my widowM race be run. 



IN MEMORIAM. 25 



XVIII. 



'Tis well ; 'tis something ; we may stand 
Where he in English earth is laid, 
And from his ashes may be made 

The violet of his native land. 

'Tis little ; but it looks in truth 

As if the quiet bones were blest 
Among familiar names to rest 

And in the places of his youth. 

Come then, pure hands, and bear the head 
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, 
And come, whatever loves to weep, 

And hear the ritual of the dead. 

Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, 
I, falling on his faithful heart. 
Would breathing thro' his lips impart 

The life that almost dies in me ; 

That dies not, but endures with pain. 
And slowly forms the firmer mind, 
Treasuring the look it cannot find, 

The words that are not heard asfain. 



26 IN MEMORIAM, 



XIX. 



The Danube to the Severn gave 

The darkened heart that beat no more \ 
They laid him by the pleasant shore, 

And in the hearing of the wave. 

There twice a day the Severn fills ; 
The salt sea-water passes by, 
And hushes half the babbling Wye, 

And makes a silence in the hills. 

The Wye is hush'd nor moved along, 
And hush'd my deepest grief of all, 
When fiird with tears that cannot fall, 

I brim with sorrow drowning song. 

The tide flows down, the wave again 
Is vocal in its wooded walls ; 
My deeper anguish also falls, 

And I can speak a little then. 



XX. 

The lesser griefs that may be said, 

That breathe a thousand tender vows, 
Are but as servants in a house 

Where lies the master newly dead ; 



IN MEMORIAM, 27 

Who speak their feeling as it is, 

And weep the fulness from the mind : 
" It will be hard," they say, " to find 

Another service such as this." 

My lighter moods are like to these. 
That out of words a comfort win ; 
But there are other griefs within, 

And tears that at their fountain freeze ; 

For by the hearth the children sit 

Cold in that atmosphere of Death, 
And scarce endure to draw the breath, 

Or like to noiseless phantoms flit : 

But open converse is there none. 
So much the vital spirits sink 
To see the vacant chair, and think, 

" How good ! how kind ! and he is gone." 



XXI. 

I SING to him that rests below, 

And, since the grasses round me wave, 
I take the grasses of the grave. 

And makes them pipes whereon to blow. 

The traveller hears me now and then, 

And sometimes harshly will he speak : 
" This fellow would make weakness weak, 

And melt the waxen hearts of men." 



28 IN MEMORIAM, 

Another answers, " Let him be, 

He loves to make parade of pain 
That with his piping he may gain 

The praise that comes to constancy." 

A third is wroth : " Is this an hour 
For private sorrow^s barren song, 
When more and more the people throng 

The chairs and thrones of civil power? 

"A time to sicken and to swoon, 

When Science reaches forth her arms 
To feel from world to world, and charms 

Her secret from the latest moon ? 

Behold, ye speak an idle thing : 

Ye never knew the sacred dust : 
I do but sing because I must, 

And pipe but as the linnets sing : 

And one is glad ; her note is gay. 

For now her little ones have ranged ; 
And one is sad ; her note is changed, 

Because her brood is stoPn away. 



xxn. 

The path by which we twain did go. 

Which led by tracks that pleased us well, 
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, 

From flower to flower, from snow to snow : 



IN MEMORIAM. 29 

And we with singing cheered the way, 

And, crownM with all the season lent, 
From April on to April went, 

And glad at heart from May to May : 

But where the path we walked began 
To slant the fifth autumnal slope. 
As we descended following Hope, 

There sat the Shadow fearM of man ; 

Who broke our fair companionship, 

And spread his mantle dark and cold, 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold. 

And dulPd the murmur on thy lip. 

And bore thee where I could not see 
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste. 
And think, that somewhere in the waste 

The Shadow sits and waits for me. 



XXIII. 

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, 
Or breaking into song by fits. 
Alone, alone, to where he sits. 

The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot, 

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, 
I wander, often falling lame. 
And looking back to whence I came, 

Or on to where the pathway leads ; 



30 IN MEMORIAM. 

And crying, How changed from where it ran 
Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb ; 
But all the lavish hills would hum 

The murmur of a happy Pan : 

When each by turns was guide to each, 
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought 

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech ; 

And all we met was fair and good, 

And all was good that Time could bring, 
And all the secret of the Spring 

Moved in the chambers of the blood ; 

And many an old philosophy 

On Argive heights divinely sang. 
And round us all the thicket rang 

To many a flute of Arcady. 



XXIV. 

And was the day of my delight 
As pure and perfect as I say? 
The very source and fount of Day 

Is dash'd with wandering isles of night. 

If all was good and fair we met, 

This earth had been the Paradise 
It never look'd to human eyes 

Since our first Sun arose and set. 



IN MEMORIAM, 31 

And is it that the haze of grief 

Makes former gladness loom so great? 

The lowness of the present state, 
That sets the past in this relief ? 

Or that the past will always win 

A glory from its being far ; 

And orb into the perfect star 
We saw not, when we moved therein? 



XXV. 

I KNOW that this was Life, — the track 
Whereon with equal feet we fared ; 
And then, as now, the day prepared 

The daily burden for the back. 

But this it was that made me move 
As light as carrier-birds in air ; 
I loved the weight I had to bear, 

Because it needed help of Love ; 

Nor could I weary, heart or limb. 

When mighty Love would cleave in twain 

The lading of a single pain, 
And part it, giving half to him. 



32 IN MEMORIAM, 



XXVI. 

Still onward winds the dreary way ; 
I with it ; for I long to prove 
No lapse of moons can canker Love, 

Whatever fickle tongues may say. 

And if that eye which watches guilt 

And goodness, and hath power to see 
Within the green the moulder'd tree, 

And towers falPn as soon as built — 

Oh, if indeed that eye foresee 
Or see (in Him is no before) 
In more of life true life no more 

And Love the indifference to be, 

Then might I find, ere yet the morn 
Breaks hither over Indian seas, 
That Shadow waiting with the keys, 

To shroud me from my proper scorn. 

XXVII. 

I ENVY not in any moods 

The captive void of noble rage, 

The linnet born within the cage, 
That never knew the summer woods : 



IN MEMORIAM. 33 

I envy not the beast that takes 

His license in the field of time, 
UnfetterM by the sense of crime, 

To whom a conscience never wakes ; 

Nor, what may count itself as blest, 

The heart that never plighted troth 
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth ; 

Nor any want-begotten rest. 

I hold it true, whatever befall ; 

I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 

'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 



XXVIII. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ : 
The moon is hid ; the night is still ; 
The Christmas bells from hill to hill 

Answer each other in the mist. 

Four voices of four hamlets round, 

From far and near, on mead and moor, 
Swell out and fail, as if a door 

Were shut between me and the sound : 

Each voice four changes on the wind. 
That now dilate, and now decrease. 
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, 

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 



34 IN MEMORIAM. 

This year I slept and woke with pain, 
I almost wish'd no more to wake, 
And that my hold on life would break 

Before I heard those bells again : 

But they my troubled spirit rule, 

For they controlled me when a boy ; 
They bring me sorrow touched with joy, 

The merry merry bells of Yule. 



XXIX. 

With such compelling cause to grieve 
As daily vexes household peace, 
And chains regret to his decease, 

How dare we keep our Christmas-eve ; 

Which brings no more a welcome guest 
To enrich the threshold of the night 
With showered largess of delight 

In dance and song and game and jest? 

Yet go, and while the holly boughs 
Entwine the cold baptismal font. 
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont, 

That guard the portals of the house ; 

Old sisters of a day gone by, 

Gray nurses, loving nothing new ; 
Why should they miss their yearly due 

Before their time ? They too will die. 



IN MEMORIAM. 35 



XXX. 

With trembling fingers did we weave 

The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
A rainy cloud possessed the earth, 

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. 

At our old pastimes in the hall 

We gamboPd, making vain pretence 
Of gladness, with an awful sense 

Of one mute Shadow watching all. 

We paused : the winds were in the beech : 
We heard them sweep the winter land ; 
And in a circle hand-in-hand 

Sat silent, looking each at each. 

Then echo-like our voices rang ; 

We sung, tho' every eye was dim, 
A merry song we sang with him 

Last year : impetuously we sang : 

We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 

Upon us : surely rest is meet : 

" They rest," we said, " their sleep is sweet," 
And silence followed, and we wept. 

Our voices took a higher range ; 

Once more we sang : " They do not die 
Nor lose their mortal sympathy. 

Nor change to us, although they change ; 



36 IN MEMORIAM, 

" Rapt from the fickle and the frail 

With gathered power, yet the same, 
Pierces the keen seraphic flame 

From orb to orb, from veil to veil." 

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn. 

Draw forth the cheerful day from night : 
O Father, touch the east, and light 

The light that shone when Hope was born. 



XXXI. 

When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, 

And home to Mary's house returned, 
Was this demanded — if he yearn'd 

To hear her weeping by his grave ? 

"Where wert thou, brother, those four days?" 
There lives no record of reply. 
Which telling what it is to die 

Had surely added praise to praise. 

From ev^ry house the neighbours met. 

The streets were filPd with joyful sound, 
A solemn gladness even crown'd 

The purple brows of Olivet. 

Behold a man raised up by Christ ! 

The rest remaineth unreveaPd ; 

He told it not ; or something seal'd 
The lips of that Evangelist. 



IN MEMORIAM, 37 



XXXII. 



Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, 
Nor other thought her mind admits 
But, he was dead, and there he sits, 

And he that brought him back is there. 

Then one deep love doth supersede 
All other, when her ardent gaze 
Roves from the living brother's face, 

And rests upon the Life indeed. 

All subtle thought, all curious fears, 

Borne down by gladness so complete, 
She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 

With costly spikenard and with tears. 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
What souls possess themselves so pure, 
Or is there blessedness like theirs? 



XXXIII. 

O THOU that after toil and storm 

Mayst seem to have reached a purer air, 
Whose faith has centre everywhere, 

Nor cares to fix itself to form, 



38 IN MEMORIAM, 

Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
Her early Heaven, her happy views ; 
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse 

A life that leads melodious days. 

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine, 
Her hands are quicker unto good : 
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 

To which she links a truth divine ! 

See thou, that countest reason ripe 
In holding by the law within, 
Thou fail not in a world of sin, 

And ev'n for want of such a type. 



XXXIV. 

My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live for evermore, 
Else earth is darkness at the core, 

And dust and ashes all that is ; 

This round of green, this orb of flame. 
Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks 
In some wild Poet, when he works 

Without a conscience or an aim. 

What then were God to such as I ? 

'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 
Of things all mortal, or to use 

A little patience ere I die ; 



/ 

IN MEMORIAM. 39 

'Twere best at once to sink to peace, 

Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
To drop head-foremost in the jaws 

Of vacant darkness and to cease. 



XXXV. 

Yet if some voice that man could trust 

Should murmur from the narrow house, 
" The cheeks drop in ; the body bows ; 

Man dies : nor is there hope in dust : " 

Might I not say? " Yet even here, 

But for one hour, O Love, I strive 
To keep so sweet a thing alive : " 

But I should turn mine ears and hear 

The moanings of the homeless sea, 

The sound of streams that swift or slow 
Draw down Ionian hills, and sow 
■ The dust of continents to be : 

And Love would answer with a sigh, 
" The sound of that forgetful shore 
Will change my sweetness more and more, 

Half-dead to know that I shall die." 

O me, what profits it to put 

An idle case ? If Death were seen 
At first as Death, Love had not been. 

Or been in narrowest working shut. 



40 IN MEMORIAM, 

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, 
Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape 
Had bruised the herb and crushed the grape. 

And bask'd and batten'd in the woods. 



XXXVI. 

Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, 
Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
We yield all blessing to the name 

Of Him that made them current coin ; 

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 

Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
When truth embodied in a tale 

Shall enter in at lowly doors. 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds. 

More strong than all poetic thought ; 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf. 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave. 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarino^s round the coral reef. 



IN MEMORIAM. 41 



XXXVII. 



Urania speaks with darkened brow : 

" Thou pratest here where thou art least ; 
This faith has many a purer priest, 

And many an abler voice than thou. 

" Go down beside thy native rill, 
On thy Parnassus set thy feet, 
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet 

About the ledo^es of the hill." 



And my Melpomene replies, 

A touch of shame upon her cheek : 
" I am not worthy ev'n to speak 

Of thy prevailing mysteries ; 

" For I am but an earthly Muse, 
And owning but a little art 
To lull with song an aching heart, 

And render human love his dues ; 

" But brooding on the dear one dead, 
And all he said of things divine, 
(And dear to me as sacred wine 

To dying lips is all he said), 



42 IN MEMORIAM, 

" I murmur'd, as I came along, 

Of comfort clasp'd in truth reveal' d ; 
And loiter'd in the master's field, 

And darkened sanctities with song." 



, XXXVIII. 

With weary steps I loiter on, 

Tho' always under alter'd skies 
The purple from the distance dies, 

My prospect and horizon gone. 

No joy the blowing season gives. 
The herald melodies of spring, 
But in the songs I love to sing 

A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 

If any care for what is here 

Survive in spirits rendered free, 
Then are these songs I sing of thee 

Not all ungrateful to thine ear. 



XXXIX. 

Old warder of these buried bones. 

And answering now my random stroke 
With fruitful cloud and living smoke, 

Dark yew, that graspest at the stones 



IN MEMORIAM. 43 

And dippest toward the dreamless head, 
To thee too comes the golden hour 
When flower is feeling after flower ; 

But Sorrow — fixt upon the dead, 

And darkening the dark graves of men, — 
What whisper'd from her lying lips ? 
Thy gloom is kindled at the tips, 

And passes into gloom again. 



XL. 

Could we forget the widow'd hour 

And look on Spirits breathed away, 
As on a maiden in the day 

When first she wears her orange-flower ! 

When crown'd with blessing she doth rise 
To take her latest leave of home, 
And hopes and light regrets that come 

Make April of her tender eyes ; 

And doubtful joys the father move, 

And tears are on the mother's face, 
As parting with a long embrace 

She enters other realms of love ; 

Her office there to rear, to teach, 
Becoming as is meet and fit 
A link among the days, to knit 

The generations each with each ; 



44 IN MEMORIAM. 

And, doubtless, unto thee is given 
A life that bears immortal fruit 
In those great offices that suit 

The full-grown energies of heaven. 

Ay me, the difference I discern ! 
How often shall her old fireside 
Be cheer'd with tidings of the bride, 

How often she herself return, 

And tell them all they would have told, 

And bring her babe, and make her boast, 
Till even those that miss'd her most 

Shall count new things as dear as old : 

But thou and I have shaken hands, 
Till growing winters lay me low ; 
My paths are in the fields I know, 

And thine in undiscovered lands. 



XLI. 

Thy spirit ere our fatal loss 

Did ever rise from high to higher ; 

As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, 
As flies the lighter thro' the gross. 

But thou art turn'd to something strange, 
And I have lost the links that bound 
Thy changes ; here upon the ground. 

No more partaker of thy change. 



IN MEMORIAM. 45 

Deep folly ! yet that this could be — 

That I could wing my will with might 
To leap the grades of life and light, 

And flash at once, my friend, to thee. 

For tho' my nature rarely yields 

To that vague fear implied in death ; 
Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, 

The howlings from forgotten fields ; 

Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 

An inner trouble I behold, 

A spectral doubt which makes me cold, 
That I shall be thy mate no more, 

Tho' following with an upward mind 

The wonders that have come to thee, 
Thro' all the secular to-be. 

But evermore a life behind. 



XLII. 

I VEX my heart with fancies dim : 
He still outstript me in the race ; 
It was but unity of place 

That made me dream I rank'd with him. 

And so may Place retain us still. 

And he the much-beloved again, 
A lord of large experience, train 

To riper growth the mind and will : 



46 IN MEMORIAM. 

And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When one that loves but knows not, reap: 

A truth from one that loves and knows ? 



XLIII. 

If Sleep and Death be truly one, 
And every spirit's folded bloom 
Thro' all its intervital gloom 

In some long trance should slumber on ; 



Unconscious of the sliding hour, 
Bare of the body, might it last, 
And silent traces of the past 

Be all the colour of the flower : 



So then were nothing lost to man ; 
So that still garden of the souls 
In many a figured leaf enrolls 

The total world since life began ; 



And love will last as pure and whole 

As when he loved me here in Time, 
And at the spiritual prime 

Rewaken with the dawnintj soul. 



IN MEMORIAllL 47 



XLIV. 



How fares it with the happy dead ? 

For here the man is more and more ; 

But he forgets the days before 
God shut the doorways of his head. 

The days have vanished, tone and tint, 
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
Gives out at times (he knows not whence) 

A little flash, a mystic hint ; 

And in the long harmonious years 

(If Death so taste Lethean springs), 
May some dim touch of earthly things 

Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. 

If such a dreamy touch should fall, 

O turn thee round, resolve the doubt ; 
My guardian angel will speak out 

In that high place, and tell thee all. 



XLV. 

The baby new to earth and sky. 

What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 

Has never thouoht that "- this is I : " 



48 IN MEMORIAM, 

But as he grows he gathers much, 

And learns the use of " I," and " me," 
And finds " I am not what I see, 

And other than the things I touch." 

So rounds he to a separate mind 

From whence clear memory may begin, 
As thro' the frame that binds him in 

His isolation grows defined. 

This use may lie in blood and breath, 

Which else were fruitless of their due, 
Had man to learn himself anew 

Beyond the second birth of Death. 



XLVI. 

We ranging down this lower track, 

The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
Is shadowM by the growing hour. 

Lest life should fail in looking back. 

So be it : there no shade can last 

In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 

But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 

The eternal landscape of the past ; 

A lifelong tract of time reveaPd ; 

The fruitful hours of still increase ; 

Days ordered in a wealthy peace, 
And those five years its richest field. 



IN MEMORIAM, ' 49 

O Love, thy province were not large, 
A bounded field, nor stretching far ; 
Look also, Love, a brooding star, 

A rosy warmth from marge to marge. 



XLVIL 

That each, who seems a separate whole. 
Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should fall 

Remerging in the general Soul, 

Is faith as vague "as all unsweet : 
Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside ; 

And I shall know him when we meet : 

And we shall sit at endless feast. 

Enjoying each the other's good : 
What vaster dream can hit the mood 

Of Love on earth ? He seeks at least 

Upon the last and sharpest height. 
Before the spirits fade away. 
Some landing-place, to clasp and say, 

" Farewell ! We lose ourselves in light." 



so IN MEMORIAM, 



XLVIII. 



If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, 
Were taken to be such as closed 
Grave doubts and answers here proposed, 

Then these were such as men might scorn : 

Her care is not to part and prove ; 

She takes, when harsher moods remit. 
What slender shade of doubt may flit, 

And makes it vassal unto love : 

And hence, indeed, she sports with words, 
But better serves a wholesome law, 
And holds it sin and shame to draw 

The deepest measure from the chords : 

Nor dare she trust a larger lay, 

But rather loosens from the lip 
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip 

Their wings in tears, and skim away. 



XLIX. 

From art, from nature, from the schools, 
Let random influences glance, 
Like light in many a shivered lance 

That breaks about the dappled pools : 



IN MEMORIAM, 51 

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, 
The fancy's tenderest eddy wreathe, 
The slightest air of song shall breathe 

To make the sullen surface crisp. 

And look thy look, and go thy way, 

But blame not thou the winds that make 
The seeming- wanton ripple break, 

The tender-penciPd shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears 
Ay me, the sorrow deepens down, 
Whose muffled motions blindly drown 

The bases of my life in tears. 



Be near me when my light is low, 

When the blood creeps, and the nerves 
prick 

And tingle ; and the heart is sick, 
And all the wheels of Beino: slow. 



Be near me when the sensuous frame 

Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust ; 
And Time, a maniac scattering dust. 

And Life, a Fury slinging flame. 



52 IN MEMORIAM. 

Be near me when my faith is dry, 

And men the flies of latter spring, 
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing 

And weave their petty cells and die. 

Be near me when I fade away. 

To point the term of human strife, 
And on the low dark verge of life 

The twilight of eternal day. 



LI. 

Do we indeed desire the dead 

Should still be near us at our side ? 
Is there no baseness we would hide? 

No inner vileness that w^e dread? 

Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
I had such reverence for his blame, 
See with clear eye some hidden shame 

And I be lessened in his love? 

I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 

Shall love be blamed for want of faith? 
There must be wisdom with great Death : 

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 

Be near us when we climb or fall : 

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 

To make allowance for us all. 



IN MEMORIAM. 53 



LII. 



I CANNOT love thee as I ought, 

For love reflects the thing beloved ; 
My words are only words, and moved 

Upon the topmost froth of thought. 

" Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song," 
The Spirit of true love replied ; 
" Thou canst not move me from thy side, 

Nor human frailty do me wrong. 

** What keeps a spirit wholly true 
To that ideal which he bears? 
What record? not the sinless years 

That breathed beneath the Syrian blue : 

** So fret not, like an idle girl, 

That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. 
Abide : thy wealth is gathered in, 

When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl." 



LIII. 

How many a father have I seen, 
A sober man, among his boys. 
Whose youth was full of foolish noise, 

Who wears his manhood hale and green : 



54 IN MEMORIAM, 

And dare we to this fancy give, 

That had the wild oat not been sown, 
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown 

The grain by which a man may live? 

Or, if we held the doctrine sound 

For life outliving heats of youth. 
Yet who would preach it as a truth 

To those that eddy round and round? 

Hold thou the good : define it well : 
For fear divine Philosophy 
Should push beyond her mark, and be 

Procuress to the Lords of Hell. 



LIV. 

Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will. 

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
That not one hfe shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void. 

When God hath made the pile complete ; 

That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivelPd in a fruitless fire. 

Or but subserves another^s sfain. 



IN MEMORIAM, 55 

Behold, we know not anything ; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last — far off — at last, to all, 

And every winter change to spring. 

So runs my dream : but what am I ? 

An infant crying in the night : 

An infant crying for the light : 
And with no language but a cry. 



LV. 

The wish, that of the living whole 
No life may fail beyond the grave, 
Derives it not from what we have 

The likest God within the soul ? 

Are God and Nature then at strife, 

That Nature lends such evil dreams? 
So careful of the type she seems. 

So careless of the single life ; 

That I, considering everywhere 

Her secret meaning in her deeds. 
And finding that of fifty seeds 

She often brings but one to bear, 

I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 

That slope thro' darkness up to God, 



56 IN MEMORIAM. 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
And gather dust and chaiF, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 

And faintly trust the larger hope. 



LVI. 

** So careful of the type?" but no. 

From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, " A thousand types are gone : 

I care for nothing, all shall go. 

" Thou makes t thine appeal to me : 
I bring to life, I bring to death : 
The spirit does but mean the breath : 

I know no more." And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair. 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
Who rolPd the psalm to wintry skies, 

Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 

Who trusted God was love indeed 
And love Creation's final law — 
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 

With ravine, shriek'd against his creed — 

Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 
Who battled for the True, the Just, 
Be blown about the desert dust. 

Or seaPd within the iron hills? 



IN MEMORIAM. 57 

No more? A monster then, a dream, 
A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
That tare each other in their slime. 

Were mellow music match'd with him. 

O life as futile, then, as frail ! 

O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 

What hope of answer, or redress ? 
Behind the veil, behind the veil. 



LVII. 

Peace ; come away : the song of woe 

Is after all an earthly song : 

Peace ; come away : we do him wrong 
To sing so wildly : let us go. 

Come ; let us go : your cheeks are pale ; 
But half my life I leave behind : 
Methinks my friend is richly shrined ; 

But I shall pass ; my work will fail. 

Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 
One set slow bell will seem to toll 
The passing of the sweetest soul 

That ever look'd with human eyes. 

I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, 
Eternal greetings to the dead ; 
And " Ave, Ave, Ave," said, 

" Adieu, adieu " for evermore. 



58 IN MEMORIAM. 



LVIII. 

In those sad words I took farewell : 
Like echoes in sepulchral halls, 
As drop by drop the water falls 

In vaults and catacombs, they fell ; 

And, falling, idly broke the peace 

Of hearts that beat from day to day. 
Half-conscious of their dying clay, 

And those cold crypts where they shall cease. 

The high Muse answered : " Wherefore grieve 
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear? 
Abide a little longer here, 

And thou shalt take a nobler leave." 



LIX. 

O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me 
No casual mistress, but a wife, 
My bosom-friend and half of life ; 

As I confess it needs must be ; 

O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood, 
Be sometimes lovely like a bride. 
And put thy harsher moods aside. 

If thou wilt have me wise and ojood. 



IN MEMORIAM. 59 

My centred passion cannot move, 

Nor will it lessen from to-day ; 

But ni have leave at times to play 
As with the creature of my love ; 

And set thee forth, for thou art mine, 

With so much hope for years to come, 
That, howsoever I know thee, some 

Could hardly tell what name were thine. 



LX. 

He past ; a soul of nobler tone : 

My spirit loved and loves him yet, 
Like some poor girl whose heart is set 

On one whose rank exceeds her own. 

He mixing with his proper sphere, 
She finds the baseness of her lot, 
Half jealous of she knows not what, 

And envying all that meet him there. 

The little village looks forlorn ; 

She sighs amid her narrow days, 
Moving about the household ways, 

In that dark house where she was born. 

The foolish neighbours come and go. 
And tease her till the day draws by : 
At night she weeps, " How vain am I ! 

How should he love a thing so low? " 



60 IN MEMORIAM, 



LXI. 

If, in thy second state sublime, 

Thy ransom'd reason change replies 
With all the circle of the wise. 

The perfect flower of human time ; 

And if thou cast thine eyes below. 
How dimly character'd and slight, 
How dwarfd a growth of cold and night, 

How blanch'd with darkness must I grow ! 

Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, 

Where thy first form was made a man ; 
I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can 

The soul of Shakspeare love thee more. 



LXII. 

Tho' if an eye that's downward cast 

Could make thee somewhat blench or fail, 
Then be my love an idle tale, 

And fading legend of the past ; 

And thou, as one that once declined, 
When he was little more than boy, 
On some unworthy heart with joy, 

But lives to wed an equal mind ; 



IN MEMORIAM, 61 

And breathes a novel world, the while 

His other passion wholly dies, 

Or in the light of deeper eyes 
Is matter for a flying smile. 



LXIII. 

Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven, 

And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart 

In its assumptions up to heaven ; 

And I am so much more than these, 

As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
And yet I spare them sympathy. 

And I would set their pains at ease. 

So mayst thou watch me where I weep, 
As, unto vaster motions bound, 
The circuits of thine orbit round 

A higher height, a deeper deep. 



LXIV. 

Dost thou look back on what hath been, 
As some divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began 

And on a simple village green ; 



62 IN MEMORIAM. 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance. 

And grapples with his evil star ; 

Who makes by force his merit known 
And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
To mould a mighty state's decrees, 

And shape the whisper of the throne ; 

And moving up from high to higher, 

Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope, 

The centre of a world's desire ; 

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream. 

When all his active powers are still, 
A distant dearness in the hill, 

A secret sweetness in the stream, 

The limit of his narrower fate, 

While yet beside its vocal springs 
He play'd at counsellors and kings. 

With one that was his earliest mate ; 

Who ploughs with pain his native lea 
And reaps the labour of his hands, 
Or in the furrow musing stands ; 

" Does my old friend remember me? " 



IN MEMORIAM. 63 



LXV. 



Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt ; 

I lull a fancy trouble-tost 

With " Love's too precious to be lost, 
A little grain shall not be spilt." 

And in that solace can I sing, 

Till out of painful phases wrought 
There flutters up a happy thought, 

Self-balanced on a lightsome wing : 

Since we deserved the name of friends, 
And thine effect so lives in me, 
A part of mine may live in thee 

And move thee on to noble ends. 



LXVI. 

You thought my heart too far diseased ; 
You wonder when my fancies play 
To find me gay among the gay, 

Like one with any trifle pleased. 

The shade by which my life was crost. 
Which makes a desert in the mind, 
Has made me kindly with my kind, 

And like to him whose sig^ht is lost : 



64 IN MEMORIAM. 

Whose feet are guided thro' the land, 

Whose jest among his friends is free, 
Who takes the children on his knee, 

And winds their curls about his hand : 

He plays with threads, he beats his chair 
For pastime, dreaming of the sky; 
His inner day can never die, 

His night of loss is always there. 



LXVII. 

When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest 
By that broad water of the west, 

There comes a glory on the walls ; 

Thy marble bright in dark appears, 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name. 

And o'er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away ; 

From off my bed the moonlight dies ; 

And closing eaves of wearied eyes 
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray : 

And then I know the mist is drawn 
A lucid veil from coast to coast, 
And in the dark church like a ghost 

Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 



IN MEMORIAM. 65 



LXVIII. 

When in the down I sink my head, 

Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my 

breath ; 
Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not 
Death, 
Nor can I dream of thee as dead : 

I walk as ere I walk'd forlorn, 

When all our path was fresh with dew, 

And all the bugle breezes blew 
Reveillee to the breaking morn. 

But what is this ? I turn about, 
I find a trouble in thine eye. 
Which makes me sad I know not why^ 

Nor can my dream resolve the doubt : 

But ere the lark hath left the lea 
I wake, and I discern the truth ; 
It is the trouble of my youth 

That foolish sleep transfers to thee. 



LXIX. 

I dream'd there would be Spring no more, 
That Nature's ancient power was lost : 
The streets were black with smoke and 
frost, 

They chatter'd trifles at the door : 



66 IN MEMORIAM. 

I wandered from the noisy town, 

I found a wood with thorny boughs : 
I took the thorns to bind my brows, 

1 wore them like a civic crown : 

I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 

From youth and babe and hoary hairs : 
They call'd me in the pubhc squares 

The fool that wears a crown of thorns : 

They calPd me fool, they calPd me child: 
I found an angel of the night ; 
The voice was low, the look was bright ; 

He look'd upon my crown and smiled : 

He reached the glory of a hand, 

That seemM to touch it into leaf: 
The voice was not the voice of grief, 

The words were hard to understand. 



LXX. 

I CANNOT see the features right, 

When on the gloom I strive to paint 
The face I know ; the hues are faint 

And mix with hollow masks of night ; 

Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 
A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
A hand that points, and palled shapes 

In shadowy thoroughfares of thought ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 67 

And crowds that stream from yawning doors, 
And shoals of pucker'd faces drive ; 
Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 

And lazy lengths on boundless shores ; 

Till all at once beyond the will 

I hear a wizard music roll. 

And thro' a lattice on the soul 
Looks thy fair face and makes it still. 



LXXI. 

Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 
And madness, thou hast forged at last 
A night-long Present of the Past 

In which we went thro' summer France. 

Hadst thou such credit with the soul? 
Then bring an opiate trebly strong, 
Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong 

That so my pleasure may be whole ; 

While now we talk as once we talk'd 

Of men and minds, the dust of change, 
The days that grow to something strange, 

In walking as of old we walk'd 

Beside the river's wooded reach, 

The fortress, and the mountain ridge, 
The cataract flashing from the bridge. 

The breaker breaking on the beach. 



68 IN MEMORIAM, 



LXXII. 



RiSEST thou thus, dim dawn, again. 
And howlest, issuing out of night, 
With blasts that blow the poplar white, 

And lash with storm the streaming pain ? 

Day, when my crown'd estate begun 
To pine in that reverse of doom, 
Which sicken'd every living bloom, 

And blurr'd the splendour of the sun ; 

Who usherest in the dolorous hour 

With thy quick tears that make the rose 
Pull sideways, and the daisy close 

Her crimson fringes to the shower ; 

Who might'st have heaved a windless flame 
Up the deep East, or, whispering, play'd 
A chequer-work of beam and shade 

Along the hills, yet look'd the same. 

As wan, as chill, as wild as now ; 

Day, markM as with some hideous crime, 
When the dark hand struck down thro' time. 

And canceird nature's best : but thou, 

Lift as thou may'st thy burthen'd brows 

Thro' clouds that drench the morning star, 
And whirl the ungarner'd sheaf afar. 

And sow the sky with flying boughs. 



IN MEMORIAM. 69 

And up thy vault with roaring sound 

Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day; 
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray, 

And hide thy shame beneath the ground. 



LXXIII. 

So many worlds, so much to do, 

So little done, such things to be, 
How know I what had need of thee, 

For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? 

The fame is quenchM that I foresaw, 

The head hath miss'd an earthly wreath : 
I curse not nature, no, nor death ; 

For nothing is that errs from law. 

We pass ; the path that each man trod 
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds : 
What fame is left for human deeds 

In endless age.^ It rests with God. 

O hollow wraith of dying fame, 

Fade wholly, while the soul exults, 
And self-infolds the large results 

Of force that would have forged a name. 



70 IN MEMORIAM. 



LXXIV. 



As sometimes in a dead man's face, 

To those that watch it more and more, 
A likeness, hardly seen before, 

Comes out — to some one of his race : 

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
I see thee what thou art, and know 
Thy likeness to the wise below. 

Thy kindred with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see. 
And what I see I leave unsaid. 
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 

His darkness beautiful with thee. 



LXXV. 

I LEAVE thy praises unexpressed 

In verse that brings myself relief, 
And by the measure of my grief 

I leave thy greatness to be guess'd ; 

What practice howsoever expert 

In fitting aptest words to things. 
Or voice the richest-toned that sings, 

Hath power to give thee as thou wert? 



IN MEMORIAM, 71 

I care not in these fading days 

To raise a cry that lasts not long, 
And round thee with the breeze of song 

To stir a little dust of praise. 

Thy leaf has perished in the green, 

And, while we breathe beneath the sun, 
The world which credits what is done 

Is cold to all that might have been. 

So here shall silence guard thy fame ; 
But somewhere, out of human view. 
Whatever thy hands are set to do 

Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. 



LXXVI. 

Take wings of fancy, and ascend, 
And in a moment set thy face 
Where all the starry heavens of space 

Are sharpenM to a needle's end ; 

Take wings of foresight ; lighten thro' 
The secular abyss to come, 
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb 

Before the mouldering of a yew ; 

And if the matin songs, that woke 
The darkness of our planet, last. 
Thine own shall wither in the vast, 

Ere half the lifetime of an oak. 



n IN MEMORIAM. 

Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers 
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain ; 
And what are they when these remain 

The ruin'd shells of hollow towers? 



LXXVII. 

What hope is here for modern rhyme 
To him, who turns a musing eye 
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie 

Foreshorten'd in the tract of time? 



These mortal lullabies of pain 

May bind a book, may line a box, 
May serve to curl a maiden^s locks ; 

Or when a thousand moons shall wane 



A man upon a stall may find. 

And, passing, turn the page that tells 
A grief, then changed to something else, 

Sung by a long-forgotten mind. 

But what of that? My darkened ways 
Shall ring with music all the same ; 
To breathe my loss is more than fame, 

To utter love more sweet than praise. 



IN MEMORIAM. 73 



LXXVIII. 



Again at Christmas did we weave 

The holiy round the Christmas hearth ; 
The silent snow possessed the earth, 

And calmly fell our Christmas-eve : 

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, 
No wing of wind the region swept, 
But over all things brooding slept 

The quite sense of something lost. 

As in the winters left behind, 

Again our ancient games had place, 
The mimic picture's breathing grace. 

And dance and song: and hoodman-blind. 



Who show'd a token of distress ? 

No single tear, no mark of pain : 
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane ? 

O grief, can grief be changed to less ? 

O last regret, regret can die ! 

No — mixt with all this mystic frame, 
Her deep relations are the same, 

But with long use her tears are dry. 



74 IN MEMORIAM, 



LXXIX. 

" More than my brothers are to me,'' — 
Let this not vex thee, noble heart ! 
I know thee of what force thou art 

To hold the costliest love in fee. 

But thou and I are one in kind, 

As moulded like in Nature's mint ; 
And hill and wood and field did print 

The same sweet forms in either mind. 

For us the same cold streamlet curl'd 

Thro' all his eddying coves ; the same 
All winds that roam the twilight came 

In whispers of the beauteous world. 

At one dear knee we proffer'd vows, 

One lesson from one book we learn'd, 
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd 

To black and brown on kindred brows. 



And so my wealth resembles thine, 
But he was rich where I was poor, 
And he supplied my want the more 

As his unlikeness fitted mine. 



IN MEMORIAM, 75 



LXXX. 



If any vague desire should rise, 

That holy Death ere Arthur died 
Had moved me kindly from his side, 

And dropt the dust on tearless eyes ; 

Then fancy shapes, as fancy can. 

The grief my loss in him had wrought, 
A grief as deep as life or thought, 

But stayM in peace with God and man. 

I make a picture in the brain ; 

I hear the sentence that he speaks ; 

He bears the burthen of the weeks 
But turns his burthen into gain. 

His credit thus shall set me free ; 

And, influence-rich to soothe and save, 
Unused example from the grave 

Reach out dead hands to comfort me. 



LXXXI. 

Could I have said while he was here, 

" My love shall now no further range ; 
There cannot come a mellower change. 

For now is love mature in ear." 



76 IN MEMORIAM, 

Love, then, had hope of richer store : 
What end is here to my complaint? 
This haunting whisper makes me faint, 

" More years had made me love thee more." 

But Death returns an answer sweet : 

" My sudden frost was sudden gain. 
And gave all ripeness to the grain, 

It mio^ht have drawn from after-heat." 



LXXXII. 

I WAGE not any feud with Death 

For changes wrought on form and face : 
No lower life that earth's embrace 

May breed with him, can fright my faith 

Eternal process moving on, 

From state to state the spirit walks ; 

And these are but the shattered stalks, 
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one. 

Nor blame I Death, because he bare 
The use of virtue out of earth : 
I know transplanted human worth 

Will bloom to profit, otherwhere. 

For this alone on Death I wreak 

The wrath that garners in my heart ; 
He put our lives so far apart 

We cannot hear each other speak. 



IN MEMORIAM, 77 



LXXXIII. 



Dip down upon the northern shore, 
O sweet new-year delaying long ; 
Thou doest expectant nature wrong ; 

Delaying long, delay no more. 

What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
Thy sweetness from its proper place? 
Can trouble live with April days, 

Or sadness in the summer moons? 

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 
The little speedwelFs darling blue, 
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew. 

Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire. 

O thou, new-year, delaying long, 

Delayest the sorrow in my blood, 
That longs to burst a frozen bud 

And flood a fresher throat with song. 



LXXXIV. 

When I contemplate all alone 

The life that had been thine below, 
And fix my thoughts on all the glow 

To which thy crescent would have grown ; 



78 IN MEMORIAM. 

I see thee sitting crownM with good, 
A central warmth diffusing bliss 
In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss, 

On all the branches of thy blood ; 

Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine ; 
For now the day was drawing on, 
When thou should'st link thy life with or 

Of mine own house, and boys of thine 

Had babbled " Uncle " on my knee ; 
But that remorseless iron hour 
Made cypress of her orange flower, 

Despair of Hope, and earth of thee. 

I seem to meet their least desire, 

To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. 
I see their unborn faces shine 

Beside the never-lighted fire. 

I see myself an honoured guest. 

Thy partner in the flowery walk 
Of letters, genial table-talk. 

Or deep dispute, and graceful jest ; 

While now thy prosperous labour fills 
The lips of men with honest praise, 
And sun by sun the happy days 

Descend below the f^olden hills 



IN MEMORIAM, 79 

With promise of a morn as fair ; 

And all the train of bounteous hours 
Conduct by paths of growing powers, 

To reverence and the silver hair ; 

Till slowly worn her earthly robe, 

Her lavish mission richly wrought, 
Leaving great legacies of thought, 

Thy spirit should fail from off the globe ; 

What time mine own might also flee. 

As link'd with thine in love and fate, 
And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait 

To the other shore, involved in thee, 

Arrive at last the blessed goal, 

And He that died in Holy Land 
Would reach us out the shining hand, 

And take us as a single soul. 

What reed was that on which I leant? 
Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake 
The old bitterness again, and break 

The low beginnings of content. 



LXXXV. 

This truth came borne with bier and pall, 
I felt it, when I sorrowed most, 
'Tis better to have loved and lost, 

Than never to have loved at all 



80 IN MEMORIAM, 

O true in word, and tried in deed, 
Demanding, so to bring relief 
To this which is our common grief, 

What kind of life is that I lead ; 

And whether trust in things above 

Be dimm'd of sorrow, or sustained ; 
And whether love for him have drain'd 

My capabilities of love ; 

Your words have virtue such as draws 
A faithful answer from the breast, 
Thro^ light reproaches, half exprest, 

And loyal unto kindly laws. 

My blood an even tenor kept. 

Till on mine ear this message falls, 
That in Vienna's fatal walls 

God's finger touch'd him, and he slept. 

The great Intelligences fair 

That range above our mortal state, 
In circle round the blessed gate, 

Received and gave him welcome there ; 

And led him thro' the blissful climes, 

And show'd him in the fountain fresh 
All knowledge that the sons of flesh 

Shall gather in the cycled times. 



IN MEMORIAM. 81 

But I remain'd, whose hopes were dim, 

Whose life, whose thoughts were littl 

worth, 
To wander on a darkened earth, 

Where all things round me breathed of him. 

O friendship, equal-poised control, 

O heart, with kindliest motion warm, 

sacred essence, other form, 
O solemn ghost, O crowned soul ! 

Yet none could better know than I, 
How much of act at human hands 
The sense of human will demands 

By which we dare to live or die. 

Whatever way my days decline, 

1 felt and feel, tho' left alone, 
His being working in mine own, 

The footsteps of his life in mine ; 

A life that all the Muses deck'd 

With gifts of grace, that might express 
All-comprehensive tenderness, 

All-subtilising intellect : 

And so my passion hath not swerved 
To works of weakness, but I find 
An image comforting the mind. 

And in my grief a strength reserved. 



82 IN MEMORIAM. 

Likewise the imaginative woe, 

That loved to handle spiritual strife, 
Diffused the shock thro' all my life, 

But in the present broke the blow. 

My pulses therefore beat again 

For other friends that once I met ; 
Nor can it suit me to forget 

The mighty hopes that make us men. 

I woo your love : I count it crime 

To mourn for any overmuch ; 

I, the divided half of such 
A friendship as had mastered Time ; 

Which masters Time indeed, and is 
Eternal, separate from fears : 
The all-assuming months and years 

Can take no part away from this : 

But Summer on the steaming floods, 

And Spring that swells the narrow brooks, 
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, 

That gather in the waning woods, 

And every pulse of wind and wave 

Recalls, in change of light or gloom, 
My old affection of the tomb, 

And my prime passion in the grave : 



IN MEMORIAM. 83 

My old affection of the tomb, 

A part of stillness, yearns to speak : 
" Arise, and get thee forth and seek 

A friendship for the years to come. 

" I watch thee from the quiet shore ; 

Thy spirit up to mine can reach ; 

But in dear words of human speech 
We two communicate no more." 

And I, " Can clouds of nature stain 
The starry clearness of the free ? 
How is it ? Canst thou feel for me 

Some painless sympathy with pain?'' 

« 
And lightly does the whisper fall ; 

" ' Tis hard for thee to fathom this ; 

I triumph in conclusive bliss, 
And that serene result of all." 

So hold I commerce with the dead ; 

Or so methinks the dead would say; 

Or so shall grief with symbols play 
And pining life be fancy-fed. 

Now looking to some settled end, 

That these things pass, and I shall prove 
A meeting somewhere, love with love, 

I crave your pardon, O my friend ; 



»4 IN MEMORIAM. 

If not so fresh, with love as true, 
I, clasping brother-hands, aver 
I could not, if I would, transfer 

The whole I felt for him to you. 

For which be they that hold apart 

The promise of the golden hours? 
First love, first friendship, equal powers, 

That marry with the virgin heart. 

Still mine, that cannot but deplore, 
That beats within a lonely place, 
That yet remembers his embrace. 

But at his footstep leaps no more. 

My heart, tho' widowM, may not rest 
Quite in the love of what is gone, 
But seeks to beat in time with one 

That warms another living breast. 

Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, 
Knowing the primrose yet is dear, 
The primrose of the later year, 

As not unlike to that of Spring. 



LXXXVI. 

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, 

That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
Of evening over brake and bloom 

And meadow, slowly breathing bare 



IN MEMORIAM. 85 

The round of space, and rapt below 
Thro^ all the dewy-tasselPd wood, 
And shadowing down the horned flood 

In ripples, fan my brows and blow 

The fever from my cheek, and sigh 

The full new life that feeds thy breath 
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and 
Death, 

111 brethren, let the fancy fly 

From belt to belt of crimson seas 

On leagues of odour streaming far, 
To where in yonder orient star 

A hundred spirits whisper " Peace." 



LXXXVIL 

I PAST beside the reverend walls 

In which of old I wore the gown ; 
I roved at random thro' the town, 

And saw the tumult of the halls ; 

And heard once more in college fanes 

The storm their high-built organs make, 
And thunder-music, rolling, shake 

The prophet blazonM on the panes ; 

And caught once more the distant shout. 
The measured pulse of racing oars 
Among the willows ; paced the shores 

And many a bridge, and all about 



86 IN MEMOKIAM. 

The same gray flats again, and felt 

The same, but not the same ; and last 
Up that long walk of limes I past 

To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 



Another name was on the door : 
I lingered ; all within was noise 
Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys 

That crashed the glass and beat the floor ; 

Where once we held debate, a band 

Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
And labour, and the changing mart, 

And all the framework of the land ; 

When one would aim an arrow fair, 

But send it slackly from the string ; 
And one would pierce an outer ring. 

And one an inner, here and there ; 

And last the master-bowman, he. 

Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 

The rapt oration flowing free 

From point to point, with power and grace 
And music in the bounds of law, 
To those conclusions when we saw 

The God within him lio^ht his face, 



IN MEMORIAM, 87 

And seem to lift the form, and glow 

In azure orbits heavenly-wise ; 

And over those ethereal eyes 
The bar of Michael Angelo. 



LXXXVIII. 

Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, 
Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks, 

tell me where the senses mix, 
O tell me where the passions meet, 

Whence radiate : fierce extremes employ 
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf. 
And in the midmost heart of grief 

Thy passion clasps a secret joy : 

And I — my harp would prelude woe — 

1 cannot all command the strings; 
The glory of the sum of things 

Will flash along the chords and go. 



LXXXIX. 

Witch-elms that counterchange the floor 
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright ; 
And thou, with all thy breadth and hei 

Of foliage, towering sycamore ; 



88 IN MEMORIAM. 

How often, hither wandering down, 

My Arthur found your shadows fair, 
And shook to all the liberal air 

The dust and din and steam of town : 

He brought an eye for all he saw ; 

He mixt in all our simple sports ; 

They pleased him, fresh from brawling 
courts 
And dusty purlieus of the law. 

O joy to him in this retreat, 

Immantled in ambrosial dark, 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 

The landscape winking thro' the heat : 

O sound to rout the brood of cares. 

The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
The gust that round the garden flew, 

And tumbled half the mellowing pears ! 

O bliss, when all in circle drawn 

About him, heart and ear were fed 
To hear him, as he lay and read 

The Tuscan poets on the lawn : 

Or in the all-golden afternoon 

A guest, or happy sister, sung. 

Or here she brought the harp and flung 

A ballad to the brio:htenino: moon : 



IN MEMORIAM, 89 

Nor less it pleased in livelier moods, 
Beyond the bounding hill to stray, 
And break the lifelong summer day 

With banquet in the distant woods ; 

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, 
Discussed the books to love or hate, 
Or touched the changes of the state. 

Or threaded some Socratic dream ; 

But if I praised the busy town, 

He loved to rail against it still. 
For " ground in yonder social mill 

We rub each other's angles down, 

" And merge " he said " in form and gloss 
The picturesque of man and man." 
We talk'd : the stream beneath us ran, 

The wine-flask lying couchM in moss, 

Or cooPd within the glooming wave ; 

And last, returning from afar. 

Before the crimson-circled star 
Had falPn into her father's grave, 

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers. 
We heard behind the woodbine veil 
The milk that bubbled in the pail. 

And buzzino^s of the honied hours. 



90 IN MEMORIAM. 



XC. 



He tasted love with half his mind, 

Nor ever drank the inviolate spring 
Where nighest heaven, who first could fling 

This bitter seed among mankind ; 

That could the dead, whose dying eyes 

Were closed with wail, resume their life, 
They would but find in child and wife 

An iron welcome when they rise : 

'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine, 
To pledge them with a kindly tear. 
To talk them o'er, to wish them here, 

To count their memories half divine ; 

But if they came who past away, 

Behold their brides in other hands ; 
The hard heir strides about their lands, 

And will not yield them for a day. 

Yea, tho' their sons were none of these. 
Not less the yet-loved sire would make 
Confusion worse than death, and shake 

The pillars of domestic peace. 

Ah dear, but come thou back to me : 

Whatever change the years have wrought, 
I find not yet one lonely thought 

That cries against my wish for thee. 



IN MEMORIAM, 91 



XCI. 



When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 

And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ; 
Or underneath the barren bush 

Flits by the sea-blue bird of March ; 

Come, wear the form by which I know 
Thy spirit in time among thy peers ; 
The hope of unaccomplislVd years 

Be large and lucid round thy brow. 

When summer's hourly-mellowing change 
May breathe, with many roses sweet. 
Upon the thousand waves of wheat. 

That ripple round the lonely grange ; 

Come : not in watches of the night, 

But where the sunbeam broodeth w^arm, 
Come, beauteous in thine after form, 

And like a finer light in light. 



XCII. 

If any vision should reveal 

Thy likeness, I might count it vain 
As but the canker of the brain ; 

Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal 



92 IN MEMORIAM, 

To chances where our lots were cast 
Together in the days behind, 
I might but say, I hear a wind 

Of memory murmuring the past. 

Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view 
A fact within the coming year ; 
And tho' the months, revolving near^ 

Should prove the phantom-warning true, 

They might not seem thy prophecies, 
But spiritual presentiments, 
And such refraction of events 

As often rises ere they rise. 



XCIII. 

I SHALL not see thee. Dare I say 
No spirit ever brake the band 
That stays him from the native land 

Where first he walk'd when claspt in clay? 

No visual shade of some one lost, 

But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb ; 

Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 

O, therefore from thy sightless range 
With gods in unconjectured bliss, 
O, from the distance of the abyss 

Of tenfold-complicated change, 



IN MEMORIAM. 93 

Descend, and touch, and enter ; hear 

The wish too strong for words to name ; 
That in this blindness of the frame 

My Ghost may feel that thine is near. 



XCIV. 

How pure at heart and sound in head, 
With what divine affections bold 
Should be the man whose thought would 
hold 

An hour's communion with the dead. 

In vain shalt thou, or any, call 

The spirits from their golden day, 
Except, like them, thou too canst say, 

My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast, 
Imaginations calm and fair. 
The memory like a cloudless air, 

The conscience as a sea at rest : 

But when the heart is full of din. 

And doubt beside the portal waits. 
They can but listen at the gates, 

And hear the household jar within. 



94 IN MEMORIAM. 



XCV. 



By night we lingered on the lawn, 
For underfoot the herb was dry ; 
And genial warmth ; and o'er the sky 

The silvery haze of summer drawn ; 

And calm that let the tapers burn 

Unwavering : not a cricket chirr'd : 
The brook alone far-off was heard, 

And on the board the fluttering urn : 

And bats went round in fragrant skies, 
And wheePd or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes ; 

While now we sang old songs that peaPd 

From knoll to knoll, where, couch'd at ease, 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field. 

But when those others, one by one, ■ 

Withdrew themselves from me and night, 
And in the house light after light 

Went out, and I was all alone. 

A hunger seized my heart ; I read 

Of that glad year which once had been, 
In those falPn leaves which kept their greer 

The noble letters of the dead : 



IN MEMORIAM. 95 

And strangely on the silence broke 

The silent-speaking words, and strange 
Was love's dumb cry defying change 

To test his worth ; and strangely spoke 

The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell 

On doubts that drive the coward back, 
And keen thro' wordy snares to track 

Suggestion to her inmost cell. 

So word by word, and line by Hne, 

The dead man touch'd me from the past, 
And all at once it seem'd at last 

The living soul was flash'd on mine, 

And mine in this was wound, and whirPd 
About empyreal heights of thought. 
And came on that which is, and caught 

The deep pulsations of the world, 

Ionian music measuring out 

The steps of Time — the shocks of Chance ^ 
The blows of Death. At length my trance 

Was canceird, stricken thro' with doubt. 



Vague words ! but ah, how hard to frame 
In matter-moulded forms of speech, 
Or ev'n for intellect to reach 

Thro' memory that which I became : 



96 IN MEMORIAM, 

Till now the doubtful dusk reveaPd 

The knolls once more where, couch'd at ease, 
The white kine glimmerM, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field : 

And suckM from out the distant gloom 
A breeze began to tremble o^er 
The large leaves of the sycamore, 

And fluctuate all the still perfume, 

And gathering freshlier overhead, 

Rock'd the full-foliaged elms, and swung 
The heavy-folded rose, and flung 

The lilies to and fro, and said 

*' The dawn, the dawn,'' and died away ; 
And East and West, without a breath, 
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, 

To broaden into boundless day. 



XCVI. 

You say, but with no touch of scorn, 

Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes 
Are tender over drowning flies. 

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 

I know not : one indeed I knew 

In many a subtle question versed, 
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first, 

But ever strove to make it true : 



IN MEMORIAM. 97 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 

At last he beat his music out. 

There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind. 
He faced the spectres of the mind 

And laid them : thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own ; 

And Power was with him in the night. 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 

And dwells not in the light alone, 

But in the darkness and the cloud, 
As over Sinai's peaks of old. 
While Israel made their gods of gold, 

Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 



XCVII. 

My love has talk'd with rocks and trees ; 
He finds on misty mountain-ground 
His own vast shadow glory-crown'd ; 

He sees himself in all he sees. 

Two partners of a married life — 

I look'd on these and thought of thee 
In vastness and in mystery, 

And of my spirit as of a wife. 



98 IN MEMORIAM. 

These two — they dwelt with eye on eye, 
Their hearts of old have beat in tune, 
Their meetings made December June, 

Their every parting was to die. 

Their love has never past away ; 
The days she never can forget 
Are earnest that he loves her yet. 

Whatever the faithless people say. 

Her life is lone, he sits apart, 

He loves her yet, she will not weep, 
Tho' rapt in matters dark and deep 

He seems to slight her simple heart. 

He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, 
He reads the secret of the star, 
He seems so near and yet so far, 

He looks so cold : she thinks him kind. 

She keeps the gift of years before, 
A witherM violet is her bliss : 
She knows not what his greatness is, 

For that, for all, she loves him more. 

For him she plays, to him she sings 
Of early faith and plighted vows ; 
She knows but matters of the house. 

And he, he knows a thousand thino:s. 



IN MEMORIAM. 9$ 

Her faith is fixt and cannot move, 

She darkly feels him great and wise, 
She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 

" I cannot understand : I love." 



XCVIII. 

You leave us : you will see the Rhine, 
And those fair hills I saiPd below, 
When I was there with him ; and go 

By summer belts of wheat and vine 

To where he breathed his latest breath, 
That City. All her splendour seems 
No livelier than the wisp that gleams 

On Lethe in the eyes of Death. 

Let her great Danube rolling fair 

Enwind her isles, unmarkM of me : 
I have not seen, I will not see 

Vienna ; rather dream that there, 

A treble darkness, Evil haunts 

The birth, the bridal ; friend from friend 
Is oftener parted, fathers bend 

Above more graves, a thousand wants 

Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey 

By each cold hearth, and sadness flings 
Her shadow on the blaze of kings : 

And yet myself have heard him say, 



100 IN MEMORIAM. 

That not in any mother town 

With statelier progress to and fro 
The double tides of chariots flow 

By park and suburb under brown 

Of lustier leaves ; nor more content, 
He told me, lives in any crowd, 
When all is gay with lamps, and loud 

With sport and song, in booth and tent, 

Imperial halls, or open plain ; 

And wheels the circled dance, and breaks 
The rocket molten into flakes 

Of crimson or in emerald rain. 



XCIX. 

RiSEST thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
So loud with voices of the birds. 
So thick with lowings of the herds. 

Day, when I lost the flower of men ; 

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red 

On yon swolPn brook that bubbles fast 
By meadows breathing of the past, 

And woodlands holy to the dead ; 

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves 
A song. that slights the coming care. 
And Autumn laying here and there 

A fiery finger on the leaves ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 101 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath 
To myriads on the genial earth, 
Memories of bridal, or of birth, 

And unto myriads more, of death. 

O wheresoever those may be. 

Betwixt the slumber of the poles, 
To-day they count as kindred souls ; 

They know me not, but mourn with me. 



C 



I CLIMB the hill : from end to end 
Of all the landscape underneath, 
I find no place that does not breathe 

Some gracious memory of my friend ; 

No gray old grange, or lonely fold, 

Or low movass and whispering reed, 
Or simple stile from mead to mead, 

Or sheepwalk up the windy wold ; 

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw 

That hears the latest linnet trill, 
Nor quarry trench'd along the hill 

And haunted by the wrangling daw ; 

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock ; 
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves 
To left and right thro' meadowy curves, 

That feed the mothers of the flock ; 



102 IN MEMORIAM. 

But each has pleased a kindred eye, 
And each reflects a kindlier day ; 
And, leaving these, to pass away, 

I think once more he seems to die. 



CI. 

Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway, 
The tender blossom flutter down, 
Unloved, that beech will gather brown, 

This maple burn itself away ; 

Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 

Ray round with flames her disk of seed, 
And many a rose-carnation feed 

With summer spice the humming air ; 

Unloved, by many a sandy bar. 

The brook shall babble down the plain, 
At noon or when the lesser wain 

Is twisting round the polar star ; 

Uncared for, gird the windy grove, 

And flood the haunts of hern and crake ; 
Or into silver arrows break 

The sailing moon in creek and cove ; 

Till from the garden and the wild 

A fresh association blow, 

And year by year the landscape grow 
Familiar to the strano^er's child ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 103 

As year by year the labourer tills 

His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; 
And year by year our memory fades 

From all the circle of the hills. 



CII. 

We leave the well-beloved place 

Where first we gazed upon the sky ; 
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, 

Will shelter one of stranger race. 

We go, but ere we go from home, 

As down the garden-walks I move, 
Two spirits of a diverse love 

Contend for loving masterdom. 

One whispers, " Here thy boyhood sung 
Long since its matin song, and heard 
The low love-language of the bird 

In native hazels tassel-hung."" 

The other answers, " Yea, but here 

Thy feet have stray'd in after hours 
With thy lost friend among the bowers. 

And this hath made them trebly dear." 

These two have striven half the day, 
And each prefers his separate claim. 
Poor rivals in a losing game, 

That will not yield each other way. 



104 IN MEMORIAM, 

I turn to go : my feet are set 

To leave the pleasant fields and farms ; 

They mix in one another's arms 
To one pure image of regret. 



cm. 

On that last night before we went 

From out the doors where I was bred, 
I dream'd a vision of the dead, 

Which left my after-morn content. 

Methought I dwelt within a hall, 

And maidens with me : distant hills 
From hidden summits fed with rills 

A river sliding by the wall. 

The hall with harp and carol rang. 

They sang of what is wise and good 
And graceful. In the centre stood 

A statue veil'd, to which they sang; 

And which, tho' veiPd, was known to me. 
The shape of him I loved, and love 
For ever : then flew in a dove 

And brought a summons from the sea : 

And when they learnt that I must go 

They wept and waiPd, but led the way 
To where a little shallop lay 

At anchor in the flood below ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 105 

And on by many a level mead, 

And shadowing bluff that made the banks, 
We glided winding under ranks 

Of iris, and the golden reed ; 

And still as vaster grew the shore 

And rolPd the floods in grander space. 
The maidens gatherM strength and grace 

And presence, lordlier than before ; 

And I myself, who sat apart 

And watch'd them, waxM in every limb ; 

I felt the thews of Anakim, 
The pulses of a Titan's heart ; 

As one would sing the death of war. 
And one would chant the history 
Of that great race, which is to be, 

And one the shaping of a star ; 

Until the forward-creeping tides 
Began to foam, and we to draw 
From deep to deep, to where we saw 

A great ship lift her shining sides. 

The man we loved was there on deck, 
But thrice as large as man he bent 
To greet us. Up the side I went, 

And fell in silence on his neck : 



106 IN MEMORIAM. 

Whereat those maidens with one mind 

BewaiPd their lot ; I did them wrong : 

" We served thee here," they said, *' so long, 

And wilt thou leave us now behind? " 

So rapt I was, they could not win 
An answer from my lips, but he 
Replying, ** Enter likewise ye 

And go with us : " they enter'd in. 

And while the wind began to sweep 
A music out of sheet and shroud, 
We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud 

That landlike slept along the deep. 



CIV. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ ; 

The moon is hid, the night is still ; 

A single church below the hill 
Is pealing, folded in the mist. 

A single peal of bells below. 

That wakens at this hour of rest 
A single murmur in the breast, 

That these are not the bells I know. 

Like strangers' voices here they sound, 
In lands where not a memory strays. 
Nor landmark breathes of other days. 

But all is new unhallow'd orround. 



IN MEMORIAM. 107 



CV. 



To-night ungather'd let us leave 
This laurel, let this holly stand: 
We live within the stranger's land. 

And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. 

Our father's dust is left alone 

And silent under other snows : 

There in due time the woodbine blows. 

The violet comes, but we are gone. 

No more shall wayward grief abuse 

The genial hour with mask and mime ; 
For change of place, like growth of time. 

Has broke the bond of dying use. 

Let cares that petty shadows cast, 

By which our lives are chiefly proved, 
A little spare the night I loved, 

And hold it solemn to the past. 

But let no footstep beat the floor, 

Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm ; 
For who would keep an ancient form 

Thro' which the spirit breathes no more ? 

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast ; 

Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown ; 

No dance, no motion, save alone 
What lightens in the lucid east 



108 IN MEMORIAM. 

Of rising worlds by yonder wood. 

Long sleeps the summer in the seed ; 

Run out your measured arcs, and lead 
The closing cycle rich in good. 



. CVI. 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night ; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new. 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 
For those that here we see no more ; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 

The faithless coldness of the times ; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 

But ring the fuller minstrel in. 



IN MEMORIAM. 109 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
The civic slander and the spite ; 
Ring in the love of truth and right, 

Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 

Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 



CVII. 

It is the day when he was born, 

A bitter day that early sank 

Behind a purple-frosty bank 
Of vapour, leaving night forlorn. 

The time admits not flowers or leaves 
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies 
The blast of North and East, and ice 

Makes daggers at the sharpen^ eaves, 

And bristles all the brakes and thorns 
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs 
Above the wood which grides and clangs 

Its leafless ribs and iron horns 



ilO IN MEMORIAM, 

Together, in the drifts that pass 
To darken on the rolling brine 
That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, 

Arrange the board and brim the glass ; 

Bring in great logs and let them lie, 
To make a solid core of heat ; 
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 

Of all things ev'n as he were by ; 

We keep the day. With festal cheer, 
With books and music, surely we 
Will drink to him, whatever he be, 

And sino^ the sons^s he loved to hear. 



CVIII. 

I WILL not shut me from my kind, 

And, lest I stiffen into stone, 

I will not eat my heart alone, 
Nor feed with sighs a passing wind : 

What profit lies in barren faith, 

And vacant yearning, tho' with might 
To scale the heaven's highest height. 

Or dive below the wells of Death ? 

What find I in the highest place, 

But mine own phantom chanting hymns ? 

And on the depths of death there swims 
The reflex of a human face. 



IN MEMORIAM. Ill 

ril rather take what fruit may be 
Of sorrow under human skies : 
'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, 

Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. 



CIX. 

Heart-affluence in discursive talk 

From household fountains never dry ; 
The critic clearness of an eye, 

That saw thro' all the Muses' walk ; 

Seraphic intellect and force 

To seize and throw the doubts of man ; 

Impassioned logic, which outran 
The hearer in its fiery course ; 

High nature amorous of the good, 

But touched with no ascetic gloom ; 
And passion pure in snowy bloom 

Thro' all the years of April blood ; 

A love of freedom rarely felt, 
Of freedom in her regal seat 
Of England ; not the schoolboy heat, 

The blind hysterics of the Celt ; 

And manhood fused with female grace 
In such a sort, the child would twine 
A trustful hand, unask'd, in thine, 

And find his comfort in thy face ; 



112 IN MEM OKI AM. 

All these have been, and thee mine eyes 

Have look'd on : if they look'd in vain/ 
My shame is greater who remain, 

Nor let thy wisdom make me wise. 



ex. 

Thy converse drew us with delight, 
The men of rathe and riper years : 
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 

Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 

On thee the loyal-hearted hung, 

The proud was half disarm^ of pride, 
Nor cared the serpent at thy side 

To flicker with his double tongue. 

The stern were mild when thou wert by. 
The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 

Was softenM, and he knew not why ; 

While I, thy nearest, sat apart, 

And felt thy triumph was as mine ; 

And loved them more, that they were thine, 

The graceful tact, the Christian art ; 

Nor mine the sweetness or the skill. 

But mine the love that will not tire. 
And, born of love, the vague desire 

That spurs an imitative will. 



IN MEMORIAM, 113 



CXI. 



The churl in spirit, up or down 

Along the scale of ranks, thro' all, 
To him who grasps a golden ball, 

By blood a king, at heart a clown ; 

The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 

His want in forms for fashion's sake, 
Will let his coltish nature break 

At seasons thro' the gilded pale : 

For who can always act ? but he. 

To whom a thousand memories call. 
Not being less but more than all 

The gentleness he seem'd to be, 

Best seem'd the thing he was, and join'd 
Each office of the social hour 
To noble manners, as the flower 

And native growth of noble mind ; 

Nor ever narrowness or spite. 
Or villain fancy fleeting by, 
Drew in the expression of an eye, 

Where God and Nature met in light ; 

And thus he bore without abuse 

The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every charlatan, 

And soil'd with all io:noble use. 



114 IN MEMORIAM, 



CXII. 



High wisdom holds my wisdom less, 

That I, who gaze with temperate eyes 
On glorious insufficiencies, 

Set light by narrower perfectness. 

But thou, that fillest all the room 
Of all my love, art reason why 
I seem to cast a careless eye 

On souls, the lesser lords of doom. 

For what wert thou ? some novel power 
Sprang up for ever at a touch, 
And hope could never hope too much, 

In watching thee from hour to hour, 

Large elements in order brought, 

And tracts of calm from tempest made, 
And world-wide fluctuation sway'd 

In vassal tides that followed thought. 



CXIII. 

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise ; 

Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee 
Which not alone had guided me, 

But served the seasons that may rise ; 



IN MEMORIAM, 115 

For can I doubt, who knew thee keen 
In intellect, with force and skill 
To strive, to fashion, to fulfil — 

I doubt not what thou wouldst have been : 

A life in civic action warm, 

A soul on highest mission sent, 
A potent voice of Parliament, 

A pillar steadfast in the storm, 

Should licensed boldness gather force, 
Becoming, when the time has birth, 
A lever to uplift the earth 

And roll it in another course, 

With thousand shocks that come and go, 
With agonies, with energies, 
With overthrowings, and with cries 

And undulations to and fro. 



CXIV. 

Who loves not Knowledge ? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty ? May she mix 
With men and prosper ! Who shall fix 

Her pillars? Let her work prevail. 

But on her forehead sits a fire : 

She sets her forward countenance 
And leaps into the future chance, 

Submitting all things to desire. 



116 IN MEMORIAM. 

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain — 
She cannot fight the fear of death. 
What is she, cut from love and faith, 

But some wild Pallas from the brain 

Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst 

All barriers in her onward race 

For power. Let her know her place ; 

She is the second, not the first. 

A higher hand must make her mild. 
If all be not in vain ; and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 

WJith wisdom, like the younger child: 

For she is earthly of the mind, 

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 
O, friend, who camest to thy goal 

So early, leaving me behind, 

I would the great world grew like thee, 
Who grewest not alone in power 
And knowledge, but by year and hour 

In reverence and in charity. 



CXV. 

Now fades the last^long streak of snow, 
Now burgeons every maze of quick 
About the flowering squares, and thick 

By ashen roots the violets blow. 



IN MEMORIAM. 117 

Now rings the woodland loud and long, 
The distance takes a lovelier hue, 
And drown'd in yonder living blue 

The lark becomes a sightless song. 

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, 
The flocks are whiter down the vale, 
And milkier every milky sail 

On winding stream or distant sea ; 

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives 
In yonder greening gleam, and fly 
The happy birds, that change their sky 

To build and brood ; that live their lives 

From land to land ; and in my breast 
Spring wakens too ; and my regret 
Becomes an April violet, 

And buds and blossoms like the rest. 



CXVL 

Is it, then, regret for buried time 

That keenlier in sweet April wakes. 
And meets the year, and gives and takes 

The colours of the crescent prime ? 

Not all : the songs, the stirring air, 
The life re-orient out of dust, 
Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust 

In that which made the world so fair. 



118 IN MEM OR I AM. 

Not all regret : the face will shine 
Upon me, while I muse alone ; 
And that dear voice, I once have known, 

Still speak to me of me and mine : 

Yet less of sorrow lives in me 

For days of happy commune dead ; 
Less yearning for the friendship fled, 

Than some strong: bond which is to be. 



CXVII. 

O DAYS and hours, your work is this 
To hold me from my proper place, 
A little while from his embrace. 

For fuller s^ain of after bliss : 



That out of distance might ensue 

Desire of nearness doubly sweet ; 
And unto meeting when we meet, 

Delight a hundredfold accrue, 

For every grain of sand that runs, 

And every span of shade that steals, 
And every kiss of toothed wheels, 

And all the courses of the suns. 



IN MEM OR JAM. 119 



CXVIII. 



Contemplate all this work of Time, 
The giant labouring in his youth ; 
Nor dream of human love and truth, 

As dying Nature's earth and lime ; 

But trust that those we call the dead 
Are breathers of an ampler day 
For ever nobler ends. They say, 

The solid earth whereon we tread 

In tracts of fluent heat began, 

And grew to seeming-random forms, 
The seeming prey of cyclic storms. 

Till at the last arose the man ; 

Who throve and branched from clime to clime, 
The herald of a higher race, 
And of himself in higher place, 

If so he type this work of time 

Within himself, from more to more ; 
Or, crown'd with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course, and show 

That life is not as idle ore. 

But iron dug from central gloom, 

And heated hot with burning fears, 
And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 

And batterM with the shocks of doom 



120 IN MEMORIAM. 

To shape and use. Arise and fly 

The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
Move upward, working out the beast, 

And let the ape and tiger die. 



CXIX. 

Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
So quickly, not as one that weeps 
I come once more ; the city sleeps ; 

I smell the meadow in the street ; 

I hear a chirp of birds ; I see 

Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn 
A light-blue lane of early dawn, 

And think of early days and thee, 

And bless thee, for thy lips are bland, 

And bright the friendship of thine eye ; 
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh 

I take the pressure of thine hand. 



cxx. 

I TRUST I have not wasted breath : 
I think we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, 

Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 121 

Not only cunning casts in clay : 

Let Science prove we are, and then 
What matters Science unto men, 

At least to me ? I would not stay. 

Let him, the wiser man who springs 
Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action like the greater ape, 

But I was born to other things. 



CXXL 

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun 

And ready, thou, to die with him, 
Thou watchest all things ever dim 

And dimmer, and a glory done : 

The team is loosened from the wain. 
The boat is drawn upon the shore ; 
Thou listenest to the closing door, 

And life is darkened in the brain. 

Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, 

By thee the world's great work is heard 
Beginning, and the wakeful bird ; 

Behind thee comes the greater light : 

The market boat is on the stream. 
And voices hail it from the brink ; 
Thou hear'st the village hammer clink, 

And see'st the moving of the team. 



122 IN MEMORIAM. 

Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name 
For what is one, the first, the last, 
Thou, like my present and my past, 

Thy place is changed ; thou art the same. 



CXXII. 

Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, 
While I rose up against my doom. 
And yearn'd to burst the folded gloom, 

To bare the eternal Heavens again. 

To feel once more, in placid awe, 
The strong imagination roll 
A sphere of stars about my soul, 

In all her motion one with law ; 

If thou wert with me, and the grave 
Divide us not, be with me now, 
And enter in at breast and brow, 

Till all my blood, a fuller wave. 

Be quicken'd with a livelier breath, 
And like an inconsiderate boy. 
As in the former flash of joy, 

I slip the thoughts of life and death ; 

And all the breeze of Fancy blows, 
And every dew-drop paints a bow, 
The wizard lightnings deeply glow. 

And every thought breaks out a rose. 



IN MEMORIAM. 123 



CXXIIL 

There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 

O earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 

There where the long street roars, hath been 
The stillness of the central sea. 

The hills are shadows, and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing stands ; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands, 

Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

But in my spirit will I dwell. 

And dream my dream, and hold it true; 

For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, 
I cannot think the thing farewell. 



CXXIV. 

That which we dare invoke to bless ; 

Our dearest faith ; our ghastliest doubt ; 

He, They, One, All ; within, without ; 
The Power in darkness whom we guess ; 

I found Him not in world or sun, 
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye ; 
Nor thro' the questions men may try, 

The petty cobwebs we have spun : 



124 IN MEMORIAM. 

If e'er when faith had falPn asleep, 

I heard a voice " believe no more " 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 

That tumbled in the Godless deep ; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part, 
And like a man in wrath the heart 

Stood up and answer'd " I have felt." 

No, like a child in doubt and fear : 

But that blind clamour made me wise ; 
Then was I as a child that cries, 

But, crying, knows his father near ; 

And what I am beheld again 

What is, and no man understands ; 
And out of darkness came the hands 

That reach thro' nature, moulding men. 



cxxv. 

Whatever I have said or sung, 

Some bitter notes my harp would give, 
Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live 

A contradiction on the tongue, 

Yet Hope had never lost her youth ; 

She did but look through dimmer eyes ; 

Or Love but play'd with gracious lies. 
Because he felt so fix'd in truth : 



1 



IN MEMORIAM, 125 

And if the song were full of care, 

He breathed the spirit of the song ; 
And if the words were sweet and strong 

He set his royal signet there ; 

Abiding with me till I sail 

To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
And this electric force, that keeps 

A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 



CXXVI. 

Love is and was my Lord and King, 
And in his presence I attend 
To hear the tidings of my friend, 

Which every hour his couriers bring. 

Love is and was my King and Lord, 
And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompass'd by his faithful guard. 

And hear at times a sentinel 

Who moves about from place to place. 
And whispers to the worlds of space, 

In the deep night, that all is well. 



126 IN MEMORIAM. 



CXXVII. 



And all is well, tho' faith and form 
Be sunderM in the night of fear ; 
Well roars the storm to those that hear 

A deeper voice across the storm, 

Proclaiming social truth shall spread, 
And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again 
The red fool-fury of the Seine 

Should pile her barricades with dead. 

But ill for him that wears a crown, 
And him, the lazar, in his rags : 
They tremble, the sustaining crags ; 

The spires of ice are toppled down, 

And molten up, and roar in flood ; 

The fortress crashes from on high, 
The brute earth lightens to the sky, 

And the great ^on sinks in blood, 

And compassed by the fires of Hell ; 
While thou, dear spirit, happy star, 
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar. 

And smilest, knowing all is well. 



IN MEMORIAM. 127 



CXXVIII. 

The love that rose on stronger wings, 
Unpalsied when he met with Death, 
Is comrade of the lesser faith 

That sees the course of human things. 

No doubt vast eddies in the flood 

Of onward time shall yet be made, 
And throned races may degrade ; 

Yet O ye mysteries of good, 

Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, 
If all your office had to do 
With old results that look like new ; 

If this were all your mission here, 

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, 

To fool the crowd with glorious lies, 
To cleave a creed in sects and cries. 

To change the bearing of a word. 

To shift an arbitrary power, 

To cramp the student at his desk, 
To make old bareness picturesque 

And tuft with grass a feudal tower ; 

Why then my scorn might well descend 
On you and yours. I see in part 
That all, as in some piece of art. 

Is toil cooperant to an end. 



128 IN MEMORIAM. 



CXXIX. 

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, 
So far, so near in woe and weal ; 
O loved the most, when most I feel 

There is a lower and a higher ; 

Known and unknown ; human, divine ; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eye ; 

Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, 
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine ; 

Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 

Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; 

Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
And mino:le all the world with thee. 



cxxx. 

Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 

I hear thee where the waters run ; 

Thou standest in the rising sun, 
And in the setting thou art fair. 

What art thou then? I cannot guess ; 
But tho' I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diffusive power, 

I do not therefore love thee less : 



IN MEMORIAM. 129 

My love involves the love before ; 

My love is vaster passion now ; 

Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 

Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 

I prosper, circled with thy voice ; 
I shall not lose thee tho- I die. 



CXXXI. 

O LIVING will that shalt endure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock, 

Rise in the spiritual rock, 
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure. 

That we may lift from out of dust 
A voice as unto him that hears, 
A cry above the conquered years 

To one that with us works, and trust. 

With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved, 

And all we flow from, soul in soul. 



130 IN MEMORIAM, 



O TRUE and tried, so well and long, 
Demand not thou a marriage lay ; 
In that it is thy marriage day 

Is music more than any song. 

Nor have I felt so much of bliss 

Since first he told me that he loved 
A daughter of our house ; nor proved 

Since that dark day a day like this ; 

Tho' I since then have numbered o'er 

Some thrice three years : they vi^ent and 

came, 
Remade the blood and changed the frame, 

And yet is love not less, but more ; 

No longer caring to embalm 

In dying songs a dead regret, 

But like a statue solid-set, 
And moulded in colossal calm. 

Regret is dead, but love is more 

Than in the summers that are flown, 
For I myself with these have grown 

To something greater than before ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 131 

Which makes appear the songs I made 
As echoes out of weaker times, 
As half but idle brawling rhymes, 

The sport of random sun and shade. 

But where is she, the bridal flower, 

That must be made a wife ere noon? 
She enters, glowing like the moon 

Of Eden on its bridal bower : 



On me she bends her blissful eyes 

And then on thee ; they meet thy look 
And brighten like the star that shook 

Betwixt the palms of paradise. 

O when her life was yet in bud, 

He too foretold the perfect rose. 

For thee she grew, for thee she grows 

For ever, and as fair as good. 

And thou art worthy ; full of power ; 
As gentle ; liberal-minded, great, 
Consistent ; wearing all that weight 

Of learning lightly like a flower. 

But now set out : the noon is near, 
And I must give away the bride ; 
She fears not, or with thee beside 

And me behind her, will not fear. 



132 IN MEMORIAM. 

For I that danced her on my knee, 

That watch'd her on her nurse's arm, 
That shielded all her life from harm 

At last must part with her to thee ; 

Now waiting to be made a wife, 

Her feet, my darling, on the dead 
Their pensive tablets round her head, 

And the most living words of life 

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 

The "wilt thou'' answer'd, and again 
The " wilt thou" ask'd, till out of twain 

Her sweet " I will " has made you one. 

Now sign your names, which shall be read, 
Mute symbols of a joyful morn, 
By village eyes as yet unborn ; 

The names are sign'd, and overhead 

Begins the clash and clang that tells 
The joy to every wandering breeze ; 
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 

The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 

O happy hour, and happier hours 

Await them. Many a merry face 
Salutes them — maidens of the place, 

That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 



IN MEMORIAM, 133 

O happy hour, behold the bride 

With him to whom her hand I gave. 
They leave the porch, they pass the grave 

That has to-day its sunny side. 

To-day the grave is bright for me, 

For them the light of life increased. 
Who stay to share the morning feast. 

Who rest to-night beside the sea. 

Let all my genial spirits advance 

To meet and greet a whiter sun ; 
My drooping memory will not shun 

The foaming grape of eastern France. 

It circles round, and fancy plays. 

And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom, 
As drinking health to bride and groom 

We wish them store of happy days. 

Nor count me all to blame if I 
Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 

But they must go, the time draws on, 

And those white-favour'd horses wait ; 
They rise, but linger ; it is late ; 

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 



134 IN MEMORIAM. 

A shade falls on us like the dark 

From little cloudlets on the grass, 
But sweeps away as out we pass 

To range the woods, to roam the park, 

Discussing how their courtship grew. 
And talk of others that are wed, 
And how she look'd, and what he said, 

And back we come at fall of dew. 



Again the feast, the speech, the glee, 

The shade of passing thought, the wealth 
Of words and wit, the double health, 

The crowning cup, the three-times-three, 

And last the dance ; — till I retire : 

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, 
And high in heaven the streaming cloud, 

And on the downs a rising fire : 

And rise, O moon, from yonder down, 
Till over down and over dale 
All night the shining vapour sail 

And pass the silent-lighted town. 

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills. 
And catch at every mountain head, 
And o'er the friths that branch and spread 

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 135 

And touch with shade the bridal doors, 
With tender gloom the roof, the wall ; 
And breaking let the splendour fall 

To spangle all the happy shores 

By which they rest, and ocean sounds, 
And, star and system rolling past, 
A soul shall draw from out the vast 

And strike his being into bounds, 

And, moved thro' life of lower phase, 
Result in man, be born and think, 
And act and love, a closer link 

Betwixt us and the crowning race 

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 

On knowledge ; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 

Is Nature like an open book ; 

No longer half-akin to brute. 

For all we thought and loved and did, 
And hoped, and suffered, is but seed 

Of what in them is flower and fruit ; 

Whereof the man, that with me trod 
This planet, was a noble type 
Appearing ere the times were ripe, 

That friend of mine who lives in God, 



136 IN MEMORIAM. 

That God, which ever lives and loves, 
One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event, 

To which the whole creation moves. 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 



The original Preface to " The Lover's Tale " states that 
it was composed in my nineteenth year. Two only of the 
three parts then written were printed, when, feeling the im- 
perfection of the poem, I withdrew it from the press. One 
of my friends however who, boylike, admired the boy's 
work, distributed among our common associates of that 
hour some copies of these two parts, without my knowledge, 
without the omissions and amendments which I had in con- 
templation, and marred by the many misprints of the com- 
positor. Seeing that these two parts have of late been mer- 
cilessly pirated, and that what I had deemed scarce worthy 
to hve is not allowed to die, may I not be pardoned if I suf- 
fer the whole poem at last to come into the light — accom- 
panied with a reprint of the sequel — a work of my mature 
life — " The Golden Supper " ? 

May, 1879. 

ARGUMENT. 

Julian, whose cousin and foster-sister, Camilla, has been 
wedded to his friend and rival, Lionel, endeavours to narrate 
the story of his own love for her, and the strange sequeL 
He speaks (in Parts H. and III.) of having been haunted 
by visions and the sound of bells, tolling for a funeral, and at 
last ringing for a marriage; but he breaks away, overcome, 
as he approaches the Event, and a witness to it completes the 
tale. 



138 THE LOVERS TALE, 



Here far away, seen from the topmost cliff, 

Filling with purple gloom the vacancies 

Between the tufted hills, the sloping seas 

Hung in mid-heaven, and half-way down rare sails, 

White as white clouds, floated from sky to sky. 

Oh ! pleasant breast of waters, quiet bay, 

Like to a quiet mind in the loud world. 

Where the chafed breakers of the outer sea 

Sank powerless, as anger falls aside 

And withers on the breast of peaceful love ; 

Thou didst receive the growth of pines that fledged 

The hills that watch'd thee, as Love watcheth Love, 

In thine own essence, and delight thyself 

To make it wholly thine on sunny days. 

Keep thou thy name of " Lover's Bay." See, 

sirs. 
Even now the Goddess of the Past, that takes 
The heart, and sometimes touches but one string 
That quivers, and is silent, and sometimes 
Sweeps suddenly all its half-moulder'd chords 
To some old melody, begins to play 
That air which pleased her first. I feel thy breath ; , 
I come, great Mistress of the ear and eye : 
Thy breath is of the pinewood ; and tho' years 
Have hollow'd out a deep and stormy strait 
Betwixt the native land of Love and me. 
Breathe but a little on me, and the sail 
Will draw me to the rising of the sun, 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 139 

The lucid chambers of the morning star, 
And East of Life. 

Permit me, friend, I prythee, 
To pass my hand across my brows, and muse 
On those dear hills, that never more will meet 
The sight that throbs and aches beneath my touch, 
As tho' there beat a heart in either eye ; 
For when the outer lights are darkened thus, 
The memory''s vision hath a keener edge. 
It grows upon me now — the semicircle 
Of dark-blue waters and the narrow fringe 
Of curving beach — its wreaths of dripping green -^ 
Its pale pink shells — the summerhouse aloft 
That opened on the pines with doors of glass, 
A mountain nest — the pleasure-boat that rock'd. 
Light-green with its own shadow, keel to keel, 
Upon the dappled dimplings of the wave, 
That blanch'd upon its side. 

O Love, O Hope ! 
They come, they crowd upon me all at once — 
Moved from the cloud of unforgotten things, 
That sometimes on the horizon of the mind 
Lies folded, often sweeps athwart in storm — 
Flash upon flash they lighten thro' me — days 
Of dewy dawning and the amber eves 
When thou and I, Camilla, thou and I 
Were borne about the bay or safely moor'd 
Beneath a low-brow'd cavern, where the tide 
Plash'd, sapping its worn ribs ; and all without 



140 THE LOVER'S TALE, 

The slowly-ridging rollers on the cliffs 

Clashed, calling to each other, and thro' the arch 

Down those loud waters, like a setting star, 

Mixt with the gorgeous west the lighthouse shone, 

And silver-smiling Venus ere she fell 

Would often loiter in her balmy blue, 

To crown it with herself 

Here, too, my love 
WaverVl at anchor with me, when day hung 
From his mid-dome in Heaven's airy halls ; 
Gleams of the water-circles as they broke, 
Flickered like doubtful smiles about her lips, 
OuiverM a flying glory on her hair, 
Leapt like a passing thought across her eyes ; 
And mine with one that will not pass, till earth 
And heaven pass too, dwelt on my heaven, a face 
Most starry-fair, but kindled from within 
As 'twere with dawn. She was dark-hair'd, dark- 
eyed : 
Oh, such dark eyes ! a single glance of them 
Will govern a whole life from birth to death, 
Careless of all things else, led on with light 
In trances and in visions : look at them, 
You lose yourself in utter ignorance ; 
You cannot find their depth ; for they go back, 
And farther back, and still withdraw themselves 
Quite into the deep soul, that evermore 
Fresh springing from her fountains in the brain, 
Still pouring thro', floods with redundant life 
Her narrow portals. 



THE LOVER'S TALE, 141 

Trust me, long ago 
I should have died, if it were possible 
To die in gazing on that perfectness 
Which I do bear within me : I had died. 
But from my farthest lapse, my latest ebb, 
Thine image, like a charm of light and strength 
Upon the waters, pushM me back again 
On these deserted sands of barren life. 
Tho' from the deep vault where the heart of Hope 
Fell into dust, and crumbled in the dark — 
Forgetting how to render beautiful 
Her countenance with quick and healthful blood — ■ 
Thou didst not sway me upward ; could I perish 
While thou, a meteor of the sepulchre, 
Didst swathe thyself all round Hope's quiet urn 
For ever? He, that saith it, hath o'erstept 
The slippery footing of his narrow wit, 
And falPn away from judgment. Thou art hght. 
To which my spirit leaneth all her flowers. 
And length of days, and immortality 
Of thought, and freshness ever self-renew'd. 
For Time and Grief abode too long with Life, 
And, like all other friends i' the world, at last 
They grew aweary of her fellowship : 
So Time and Grief did beckon unto Death, 
And Death drew nigh and beat the doors of Life ; 
But thou didst sit alone in the inner house, 
A wakeful portress, and didst parle with Death, — 
" This is a charmed dwelling which I hold ; '' 
So Death gave back, and would no further come. 
Yet is my life nor in the present time, 



142 THE LOVER'S TALE, 

Nor in the present place. To me alone, 

Pushed from his chair of regal heritage, 

The Present is the vassal of the Past : 

So that, in that I have lived, do I live, 

And cannot die, and am, in having been — 

A portion of the pleasant yesterday, 

Thrust forward on to-day and out of place ; 

A body journeying onward, sick with toil. 

The weight as if of age upon my limbs. 

The grasp of hopeless grief about my heart. 

And all the senses weakened, save in that, 

Which long ago they had glean'd and garner'd up 

Into the granaries of memory — 

The clear brow, bulwark of the precious brain, 

Chink'd as you see, and seam'd — and all the while 

The light soul twines and mingles with the growths 

Of vigorous early days, attracted, won. 

Married, made one with, molten into all 

The beautiful in Past of act or place, 

And like the all-enduring camel, driven 

Far from the diamond fountain by the palms, 

Who toils across the middle moonlit nights, 

Or when the white heats of the blinding noons 

Beat from the concave sand ; yet in him keeps 

A draught of that sweet fountain that he loves, 

To stay his feet from falling, and his spirit 

From bitterness of death. 

Ye ask me, friends, 
When I began to love. How should I tell you? 
Or from the after-fulness of my heart. 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 143 

Flow back again unto my slender spring 

And first of love, tho' every turn and depth 

Between is clearer in my life than all 

Its present flow. Ye know not what ye ask. 

How should the broad and open flower tell 

What sort of bud it was, when, prest together 

In its green sheath, close-lapt in silken folds, 

It seem'd to keep its sweetness to itself. 

Yet was not the less sweet for that it seem'd? 

For young Life knows not when young Life was 

born. 
But takes it all for granted : neither Love, 
Warm in the heart, his cradle, can remember 
Love in the womb, but resteth satisfied. 
Looking on her that brought him to the light : 
Or as men know not when they fall asleep 
Into delicious dreams, our other life. 
So know I not when I began to love. 
This is my sum of knowledge — that my love 
Grew with myself — say rather, was my growth, 
My inward sap, the hold I have on earth, 
My outward circling air wherewith I breathe, 
Which yet upholds my life, and evermore 
Is to me daily life and daily death : 
For how should I have lived and not have loved? 
Can ye take off the sweetness from the flower. 
The colour and the sweetness from the rose, 
And place them by themselves ; or set apart 
Their motions and their brightness from the stars, 
And then point out the flower or the star? 
Or build a wall betwixt my life and love, 



144 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

And tell me where I am ? ^Tis even thus : 
In that I live I love ; because I love 
I live : whatever is fountain to the one 
Is fountain to the other ; and whene'er 
Our God unknits the riddle of the one, 
There is no shade or fold of mystery- 
Swathing the other. 

Many, many years, 
(For they seem many and my most of life, 
And well I could have lingered in that porch, 
So unproportion'd to the dwelling-place,) 
In the Maydews of childhood, opposite 
The flush and dawn of youth, we lived together, 
Apart, alone together on those hills. 

Before he saw my day my father died. 
And he was happy that he saw it not ; 
But I and the first daisy on his grave 
From the same clay came into light at once. 
As Love and I do number equal years, 
So she, my love, is of an age with me. 
How like each other was the birth of each! 
On the same morning, almost the same hour. 
Under the selfsame aspect of the stars, 
(Oh falsehood of all starcraft !) we were born. 
How like each other was the birth of each ! 
The sister of my mother — she that bore 
Camilla close beneath her beating heart, 
Which to the imprisoned spirit of the child. 
With its true-touched pulses in the flow 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 145 

And hourly visitation of the blood, 

Sent notes of preparation manifold, 

And mellow'd echoes of the outer world — 

My mother\s sister, mother of my love, 

Who had a twofold claim upon my heart, 

One twofold mightier than the other was, 

In giving so much beauty to the world. 

And so much wealth as God had charged her with — 

Loathing to put it from herself for ever, 

Left her own life with it ; and dying thus, 

Crowned with her highest act the placid face 

And breathless body of her good deeds past. 

So were we born, so orphan^. She was motherless 
And I without a father. So from each 
Of those two pillars which from earth uphold 
Our childhood, one had fallen away, and all 
The careful burthen of our tender years 
Trembled upon the other. He that gave 
Her life, to me delightedly fulfilPd 
All lovingkindnesses, all offices 
Of watchful care and trembling tenderness. 
He waked for both : he pray'd for both : he slept 
Dreaming of both : nor was his love the less 
Because it was divided, and shot forth 
Boughs on each side, laden with wholesome shade, 
Wherein we nested sleeping or awake, 
And sang aloud the matin-song of life. 

She was my foster-sister : on one arm 
The flaxen rino:lets of our infancies 



146 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

Wandered, the while we rested : one soft lap 
Pillow'd us both : a common light of eyes 
Was on us as we lay : our baby lips, 
Kissing one bosom, ever drew from thence 
The stream of life, one stream, one life, one blood, 
One sustenance, which, still as thought grew large, 
Still larger moulding all the house of thought. 
Made all our tastes and fancies like, perhaps — 
All — all but one; and strange to me, and sweet, 
Sweet thro' strange years to know that whatsoe'er 
Our general mother meant for me alone, 
Our mutual mother dealt to both of us : 
So what was earliest mine in earliest life, 
I shared with her in whom myself remains. 

As was our childhood, so our infancy, 
They tell me, was a very miracle 
Of fellow-feeling and communion. 
They tell me that we would not be alone, — 
We cried when we were parted ; when I wept, 
Her smile lit up the rainbow on my tears. 
Stayed on the cloud of sorrow ; that we loved 
The sound of one-another\s voices more 
Than the gray cuckoo loves his name, and learned 
To lisp in tune together ; that we slept 
In the same cradle always, face to face. 
Heart beating time to heart, lip pressing lip, 
Folding each other, breathing on each other. 
Dreaming together (dreaming of each other 
They should have added), till the morning light 
Sloped thro' the pines, upon the dewy pane 



THE LOVERS TALE, 147 

Falling, unseaPd our eyelids, and we woke 

To gaze upon each other. If this be true, 

At thought of which my whole soul languishes 

And faints, and hath no pulse, no breath — as tho' 

A man in some still garden should infuse 

Rich atar in the bosom of the rose. 

Till, drunk with its own wine, and overfull 

Of sweetness, and in smelling of itself. 

It fall on its own thorns — if this be true — 

And that way my wish leads me evermore 

Still to believe it — 'tis so sweet a thought, 

Why in the utter stillness of the soul 

Doth questioned memory answer not, nor tell 

Of this our earliest, our closest-drawn. 

Most loveliest, earthly-heavenliest harmony? 

O blossomed portal of the lonely house, 
Green prelude, April promise, glad new-3^ear 
Of Being, which with earliest violets 
And lavish carol of clear-throated larks 
Fiird all the March of life ! — I will not speak of 

thee; 
These have not seen thee, these can never know thee, 
They cannot understand me. Pass we then 
A term of eighteen years. Ye would but laugh, 
If I should tell you how I hoard in thought 
The faded rhymes and scraps of ancient crones, 
Gray relics of the nurseries of the world, 
Which are as gems set in my memory, 
Because she learnt them with me ; or what use 
To know her father left us just before 
The daffodil was blown ? or how we found 



148 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

The dead man cast upon the shore? All this 
Seems to the quiet daylight of your minds 
But cloud and smoke, and in the dark of mine 
Is traced with flame. Move with me to the event. 

There came a glorious morning, such a one 
As dawns but once a season. Mercury 
On such a morning would have flung himself 
From cloud to cloud, and swum with balanced 

wings 
To some tall mountain : when I said to her, 
*' A day for Gods to stoop," she answered, *' Ay, 
And men to soar : " for as that other gazed, 
Shading his eyes till all the fiery cloud, 
The prophet and the chariot and the steeds, 
Suck'd into oneness like a little star 
Were drunk into the inmost blue, we stood, 
When first we came from out the pines at noon, 
With hands for eaves, uplooking and almost 
Waiting to see some blessed shape in heaven, 
So bathed we were in brilliance. Never yet 
Before or after have I known the spring 
Pour with such sudden deluges of light 
Into the middle summer : for that day 
Love, rising, shook his wings, and charged the winds 
With spiced May-sweets from bound to bound, and 

blew 
Fresh fire into the sun, and from within 
Burst thro' the heated buds, and sent his soul 
Into the songs of birds, and touched far-off 
His mountain-altars, his high hills, with flame 
Milder and purer. 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 149 

Thro' the rocks we wound : 
The great pine shook with lonely sounds of joy 
That came on the sea-wind. As mountain streams 
Our bloods ran free : the sunshine seem'd to brood 
More warmly on the heart than on the brow. 
We often paused, and, looking back, we saw 
The clefts and openings in the mountains filPd 
With the blue valley and the glistening brooks, 
And all the low dark groves, a land of love ! 
A land of promise, a land of memory, 
A land of promise flowing with the milk 
And honey of delicious memories ! 
And down to sea, and far as eye could ken, 
Each way from verge to verge a Holy Land, 
Still growing holier as you near'd the bay, 
For there the Temple stood. 

When we had reached 
The grassy platform on some hill, I stoop'd, 
I gatherM the wild herbs, and for her brows 
And mine made garlands of the selfsame flower, 
Which she took smiling, and with my work thus 
CrownM her clear forehead. Once or twice she told 

me 
(For I remember all things) to let grow 
The flowers that run poison in their veins. 
She said, "The evil flourish in the world." 
Then playfully she gave herself the lie — 
*' Nothing in nature is unbeautiful ; 
So, brother, pluck and spare not.''' So I wove 
Ev'n the dull-blooded poppy-stem, "whose flower. 



150 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

' Hued with the scarlet of a fierce sunrise, 
Like to the wild youth of an evil prince, 
Is without sweetness, but who crowns himself 
Above the naked poisons of his heart 
In his old age." A graceful thought of hers 
Grav'n on my fancy ! And oh, how like a nymph, 
A stately mountain nymph she look'd! how native 
Unto the hills she trod on ! While I gazed 
My coronal slowly disentwined itself 
And fell between us both ; tho' while I gazed 
My spirit leap'd as with those thrills of bliss 
That strike across the soul in prayer, and show us 
That we are surely heard. Methought a light 
Burst from the garland I had wov'n, and stood 
A solid glory on her bright black hair ; 
A light methought broke from her dark, dark eyes, 
And shot itself into the singing winds ; 
A mystic light flashed ev'n from her white robe 
As from a glass in the sun, and fell about 
My footsteps on the mountains. 

Last we came 
To what our people call " The Hill of Woe." 
A bridge is there, that, lookM at from beneath 
Seems but a cobweb filament to link 
The yawning of an earthquake-cloven chasm. 
And thence one night, when all the winds were 

loud, 
A woful man (for so the story went) 
Had thrust his wife and child and dash'd himself 
Into the dizzy depth below. Below, 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 151 

Fierce in the strength of far descent, a stream 
FHes with a shattered foam along the chasm. 

The path was perilous, loosely strown with crags,- 
We mounted slowly ; yet to both there came 
The joy of life in steepness overcome, 
And victories of ascent, and looking down 
On all that had look'd down on us ; and joy 
In breathing nearer heaven ; and joy to me, 
High over all the azure-circled earth, 
To breathe with her as if in heaven itself; 
And more than joy that I to her became 
Her guardian and her angel, raising her 
Still higher, past all peril, until she saw 
Beneath her feet the region far away, 
Beyond the nearest mountain's bosky brows, 
Arise in open prospect — heath and hill, 
And hollow lined and wooded to the lips. 
And steep-down walls of battlemented rock 
Gilded with broom, or shatter'd into spires. 
And glory of broad waters interfused. 
Whence rose as it were breath and steam of gold, 
And over all the great wood rioting 
And climbing, streaked or starred at intervals 
With falling brook or blossomM bush — and last, 
rVaming the mighty landscape to the west, 

purple range of mountain-cones, between 

hose interspaces gush'd in blinding bursts 

he incorporate blaze of sun and sea. 

At length 
' descending from the point and standing both, 



152 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

There on the tremulous bridge, that from beneath 

Had seem'd a gossamer filament up in air, 

We paused amid the splendour. All the west 

And ev'n unto the middle south was ribbM 

And barr'd with bloom on bloom. The sun below, 

Held for a space 'twixt cloud and wave, showerM 

down 
Rays of a mighty circle, weaving over 
That various wilderness a tissue of light 
UnparallePd. On the other side, the moon, 
Half-melted into thin blue air, stood still, 
And pale and fibrous as a withered leaf, 
Nor yet endured in presence of His eyes 
To indue his lustre ; most unloverlike, 
Since in his absence full of light and joy. 
And giving light to others. But this most, 
Next to her presence whom I loved so well, 
Spoke loudly even into my inmost heart 
As to my outward hearing : the loud stream, 
Forth issuing from his portals in the crag 
(A visible link unto the home of my heart), 
Ran amber toward the west, and nigh the sea 
Parting my own loved mountains was received, 
Shorn of its strength, into the sympathy 
Of that small bay, which out to open main 
Glow'd intermingling close beneath the sun. 
Spirit of Love ! that little hour was bound 
Shut in from Time, and dedicate to thee : 
Thy fires from heaven had touched it, and the 

earth 
They fell on became hallow'd evermore. 



THE LOVER'S TALE, 153 

We turn'd : our eyes met : hers were bright, and 
mine 
Were dim with floating tears, that shot the sunset 
In lightnings round me ; and my name was borne 
Upon her breath. Henceforth my name has been 
A hallowed memory Hke the names of old, 
A center-d, glory-circled memory, 
And a peculiar treasure, brooking not 
Exchange or currency : and in that hour 
A hope flowM round me, like a golden mist 
Charm'd amid eddies of melodious airs, 
A moment, ere the onward whirlwind shatter it, 
Waver'd and floated — which was less than Hope, 
Because it lack'd the power of perfect Hope ; 
But which was more and higher than all Hope, 
Because all other Hope had lower aim ; 
Even that this name to which her gracious lips 
Did lend such gentle utterance, this one name, 
In some obscure hereafter, might inwreathe 
(How lovelier, nobler then !) her life, her love. 
With my life, love, soul, spirit, and heart and 
strength. 

" Brother,'' she said, '' let this be calPd henceforth 
The Hill of Hope ; '' and I replied, " O sister. 
My will is one with thine ; the Hill of Hope." 
Nevertheless, we did not change the name. 

I did not speak : I could not speak my love. 
Love lieth deep : Love dwells not in lip-depths. 
Love wraps his wings on either side the heart, 
Constraining it with kisses close and warm, 



154 THE LOVER'S TALE, 

Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts 

So that they pass not to the shrine of sound. 

Else had the life of that delighted hour 

Drunk in the largeness of the utterance 

Of Love ; but how should Earthly measure mete 

The Heavenly-unmeasured or unlimited Love, 

Who scarce can tune his high majestic sense 

Unto the thundersong that wheels the spheres, 

Scarce living in the ^olian harmony, 

And flowing odour of the spacious air. 

Scarce housed within the circle of this Earth, 

Be cabin'd up in words and syllables, 

Which pass with that which breathes them ? Sooner 

Earth 
Might go round Heaven, and the strait girth of 

Time 
Inswathe the fulness of Eternity, 
Than language grasp the infinite of Love. 

O day which did enwomb that happy hour, 
Thou art blessed in the years, divinest day ! 
O Genius of that hour which dost uphold 
Thy coronal of glory like a God, 
Amid thy melancholy mates far-seen, 
Who walk before thee, ever turning round 
To gaze upon thee till their eyes are dim 
With dwelling on the light and depth of thine, 
Thy name is ever worshipped among hours ! 
Had I died then, I had not seem'd to die, 
For bliss stood round me like the light of Heaven, — ■ 
Had I died then, I had not known the death ; 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 155 

Yea had the Power from whose right hand the Hght 
Of Life issueth, and from whose left hand floweth 
The Shadow of Death, perennial effluences, 
Whereof to all that draw the wholesome air, 
Somewhile the one must overflow the other ; 
Then had he stemmed my day with night, and 

driven 
My current to the fountain whence it sprang, — 
Even his own abiding excellence — 
On me, methinks, that shock of gloom had falPn 
Unfelt, and in this glory I had merged 
The other, like the sun I gazed upon, 
Which seeming for the moment due to death. 
And dipping his head low beneath the verge. 
Yet bearing round about him his own day, 
In confidence of unabated strength, 
Steppeth from Heaven to Heaven, from light to light, 
And holdeth his undimmed forehead far 
Into a clearer zenith, pure of cloud. 

We trod the shadow of the downward hill ; 
We past from light to dark. On the other side 
Is scooped a cavern and a mountain hall, 
Which none have fathomed. If you go far in 
(The country people rumour) you may hear 
The moaning of the woman and the child, 
Shut in the secret chambers of the rock. 
I too have heard a sound — perchance of streams 
Running far on within its inmost halls, 
The home of darkness ; but the cavern-mouth, 
Half overtrailed with a wanton weed, 



156 THE LOVERS TALE. 

Gives birth to a brawling brook, that passing lightly 

Adown a natural stair of tangled roots, 

Is presently received in a sweet grave 

Of eglantines, a place of burial 

Far lovelier than its cradle ; for unseen, 

But taken with the sweetness of the place, 

It makes a constant bubbling melody 

That drowns the nearer echoes. Lower down 

Spreads out a little lake, that, flooding, leaves 

Low banks of yellow sand ; and from the woods 

That belt it rise three dark, tall cypresses, — 

Three cypresses, symbols of mortal woe, 

That men plant over graves. 

Hither we came, 
And sitting down upon the golden moss, 
Held converse sweet and low — low converse sweet, 
In which our voices bore least part. The wind 
Told a lovetale beside us, how he wooM 
The waters, and the waters answering lisp'd 
To kisses of the wind, that, sick with love, 
Fainted at intervals, and grew again 
To utterance of passion. Ye cannot shape 
Fancy so fair as is this memory. 
Methought all excellence that ever was 
Had drawn herself from many thousand years. 
And all the separate Edens of this earth. 
To centre in this place and time. I listen'd, 
And her words stole with most prevailing sweetness 
Into my heart, as thronging fancies come 
To boys and girls when summer days are new, 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 157 

And soul and heart and body are all at ease : 

What marvel my Camilla told me all ? 

It was so happy an hour, so sweet a place, 

And I was as the brother of her blood, 

And by that name I moved upon her breath ; 

Dear name, which had too much of nearness in it 

And heralded the distance of this time ! 

At first her voice was very sweet and low, 

As if she were afraid of utterance ; 

But in the onward current of her speech, 

(As echoes of the hollow-banked brooks 

Are fashion^ by the channel which they keep). 

Her words did of their meaning borrow sound, 

Her cheek did catch the colour of her words. 

I heard and trembled, yet I could but hear; 

My heart paused — my raised eyelids would not fall. 

But still I kept my eyes upon the sky. 

I seem'd the only part of Time stood still, 

And saw the motion of all other things ; 

While her words, syllable by syllable, 

Like water, drop by drop, upon my ear 

Fell ; and I wished, yet wish'd her not to speak ; 

But she spake on, for I did name no wish. 

What marvel my Camilla told me all 

Her maiden dignities of Hope and Love — - 

*' Perchance,'' she said, ** returned." Even then the 

stars 
Did tremble in their stations as I gazed ; 
But she spake on, for I did name no wish, 
No wish — no hope. Hope was not wholly dead, 
But breathing hard at the approach of Death, — 



158 THE LOVER'S TALE, 



\ 



Camilla, my Camilla, who was mine 

No longer in the dearest sense of mine — 

For all the secret of her inmost heart, 

And all the maiden empire of her mind, 

Lay like a map before me, and I saw 

There, where 1 hoped myself to reign as king, 

There, where that day I crownM myself as king, 

There in my realm and even on my throne, 

Another I then it seem'd as tho' a link 

Of some tight chain within my inmost frame 

Was riven in twain : that life I heeded not 

Flow'd from me, and the darkness of the grave, 

The darkness of the grave and utter night, 

Did swallow up my vision ; at her feet, 

Even the feet of her I loved, I fell, 

Smit with exceedino: sorrow unto Death. 



Then had the earth beneath me yawning cloven 
With such a sound as when an iceberg splits 
From cope to base — had Heaven from all her doors, 
With all her golden thresholds clashing, roird 
Her heaviest thunder — I had lain as dead, 
Mute, blind and motionless as then I lay ; 
Dead, for henceforth there was no life for me ! 
Mute, for henceforth what use were words to me ! 
Blind, for the day was as the night to me ! 
The night to me was kinder than the day ; 
The night in pity took away my day. 
Because my grief as yet was newly born 
Of eyes too weak vo look upon the light; 
And thro' the hast-* notice of the ear 



THE LOVER'S TALE, 159 

Frail Life was startled from the tender love 

Of him she brooded over. Would I had lain 

Until the plaited ivy-tress had wound 

Round my worn limbs, and the wild brier had 

driven 
Its knotted thorns thro' my unpaining brows, 
Leaning its roses on my faded eyes. 
The wind had blown above me, and the rain 
Had falPn upon me, and the gilded snake 
Had nestled in this bosom-throne of Love, 
But I had been at rest for evermore. 

Long time entrancement held me. All too soon 
Life (like a wanton too-officious friend, 
Who will not hear denial, viin and rude 
With proffer of unwish'd-for services) 
Entering all the avenues of sense 
Past thro' into his citadel, the brain, 
With hated warmth of apprehensiveness. 
And first the chillness of the sprinkled brook 
Smote on my brows, and then I seemM to hear 
Its murmur, as the drowning seaman hears. 
Who with his head below the surface dropt 
Listens the mufHed booming indistinct 
Of the confused floods, and dimly knows 
His head shall rise no more : and then came in 
The white light of the weary moon above. 
Diffused and molten into flaky cloud. 
Was my sight drunk that it did shape to me 
Him who should own that name? Were it not well 
If so be that the echo of that name 



160 THE LOVER'S TALE. 



^ 



Ringing within the fancy had updrawn 

A fashion and a phantasm of the form 

It should attach to? Phantom! — had the ghast-" 

liest 
That ever lusted for a body, sucking 
The foul steam of the grave to thicken by it, 
There in the shuddering moonlight brought its face 
And what it has for eyes as close to mine 
As he did — better that than his, than he 
The friend, the neighbour, Lionel, the beloved, 
The loved, the lover, the happy Lionel, 
The low-voiced, tender-spirited Lionel, 
All joy, to whom my agony was a joy. 
O how her choice did leap forth from his eyes ! 
O how her love did clothe itself in smiles 
About his lips ! and — not one moment's grace — 
Then when the effect weighed seas upon my head 
To come my way ! to twit me with the cause ! 

Was not the land as free thro' all her ways 
To him as me? Was not his wont to walk 
Between the going light and growing night? 
Had I not learnt my loss before he came? 
Could that be more because he came my way? 
Why should he not come my way if he would? 
And yet to-night, to-nigl^t — when all my wealth 
FlashM from me in a moment and I fell 
Beggar'd for ever — why should he come my way 
Robed in those robes of light I must not wear, 
With that great crown of beams about his brows — 
Come like an angel to a damned soul, 



THE LOVER'S TALE, 161 

To tell him of the bliss he had with God — 
Come like a careless and a greedy heir 
That scarce can wait the reading of the will 
Before he takes possession? Was mine a mood 
To be invaded rudely, and not rather 
A sacred, secret, unapproached woe, 
Unspeakable? I was shut up with Grief; 
She took the body of my past delight 
Narded and swathed and balm'd it for herself, 
And laid it in a sepulchre of rock 
Never to rise again. I was led mute 
Into her temple like a sacrifice ; 
I was the High Priest in her holiest place, 
Not to be loudly broken in upon. 

Oh friend, thoughts deep and heavy as these well- 
nigh 
O'erbore the limits of my brain : but he 
Bent o'er me, and my neck his arm upstayM. 
I thought it was an adder's fold, and once 
I strove to disengage myself, but faiPd, 
Being so feeble : she bent above me, too ; 
Wan was her cheek ; for whatsoe'er of blight 
Lives in the dewy touch of pity had made 
The red rose there a pale one — and her eyes — 
I saw the moonlight glitter on their tears — 
And some few drops of that distressful rain 
Fell on my face, and her long ringlets moved, 
Drooping and beaten by the breeze, and brush'd 
My fallen forehead in their to and fro, 
For in the sudden ano^uish of her heart 



162 THE LOVER'S TALE, 

Loosed from their simple thrall they had flow'd 

abroad, 
And floated on and parted round her neck, 
Mantling her form halfway. She, when I woke, 
Something she ask'd, I know not what, and ask'd, 
UnanswerM, since I spake not ; for the sound 
Of that dear voice so musically low. 
And now first heard with any sense of pain, 
As it had taken life away before, 
Choked all the syllables, that strove to rise 
From my full heart. 

The blissful lover, too, 
From his great hoard of happiness distilPd 
Some drops of solace ; like a vain rich man, 
That, having always prosperM in the world, 
Folding his hands, deals comfortable words 
To hearts wounded for ever ; yet, in truth, 
Fair speech was his and delicate of phrase. 
Falling in whispers on the sense, addressed 
More to the inward than the outward ear, 
As rain of the midsummer midnight soft. 
Scarce-heard,, recalling fragrance and the green 
Of the dead spring : but mine was wholly dead. 
No bud, no leaf, no flower, no fruit for me. 
Yet who had done, or who had suffered wrong? 
And why was I to darken their pure love. 
If, as I found, they two did love each other, 
Because my own was darkened ? Why was I 
To cross between their happy star and them ? 
To stand a shadow by their shining doors. 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 163 

And vex them with my darkness ? Did I love her ? 
Ye know that I did love her ; to this present 
My full-orb'd love has waned not. Did I love her, 
And could I look upon her tearful eyes ? 
What had she done to weep? Why should she 
weep? 

innocent of spirit — let my heart 

Break rather — whom the gentlest airs of Heaven 
Should kiss with an unwonted gentleness. 
Her love did murder mine? What then? She 
deemM 

1 wore a brother^s mind : she calPd me brother : 
She told me all her love : she shall not weep. 

The brightness of a burning thought, awhile 
In battle with the glooms of my dark will, 
Moonlike emerged, and to itself lit up 
There on the depth of an unfathom'd woe 
Reflex of action. Starting up at once. 
As from a dismal dream of my own death, 
I, for I loved her, lost my love in Love ; 
I, for I loved her, graspt the hand she lovM, 
And laid it in her own, and sent my cry 
Thro^ the blank night to Him who loving made 
The happy and the unhappy love, that He 
Would hold the hand of blessing over them, 
Lionel, the happy, and her, and her, his bride ! 
Let them so love that men and boys may say, 
** Lo ! how they love each other ! " till their love 
Shall ripen to a proverb, unto all 
Known, when their faces are forgot in the land — 



164 THE LOVER'S TALE, 

One golden dream of love, from which may death 
Awake them with heaven's music in a life 
More living to some happier happiness, 
Swallowing its precedent in victory. 
And as for me, Camilla, as for me, — 
The dew of tears is an unwholesome dew, 
They will but sicken the sick plant the more. 
Deem that I love thee but as brothers do. 
So shalt thou love me still as sisters do ; 
Or if thou dream aught farther, dream but how 
I could have loved thee, had there been none else 
To love as lovers, loved again by thee. 

Or this, or somewhat like to this, I spake. 
When I beheld her weep so ruefully ; 
For sure my love should ne'er indue the front 
And mask of Hate, who lives on others' moans. 
Shall Love pledge Hatred in her bitter draughts, 
And batten on her poisons ? Love forbid ! 
Love passeth not the threshold of cold Hate, 
And Hate is strange beneath the roof of Love. 
O Love, if thou be'st Love, dry up these tears 
Shed for the love of Love ; for tho' mine image, 
The subject of thy power, be cold in her. 
Yet, like cold snow, it melteth in the source 
Of these sad tears, and feeds their downward flow. 
So Love, arraigned to judgment and to death, 
Received unto himself a part of blame. 
Being guiltless, as an innocent prisoner, 
Who, when the woful sentence hath been past, 
And all the clearness of his fame hath irone 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 165 

Beneath the shadow of the curse of man, 

First falls asleep in swoon, wherefrom awaked j 

And looking round upon his tearful friends, 

Forthwith and in his agony conceives 

A shameful sense as of a cleaving crime — 

For whence without some guilt should such grief be ? 

So died that hour, and fell into the abysm 
Of forms outworn, but not to me outworn, 
Who never haiPd another — was there one? 
There might be one — one other, worth the life 
That made it sensible. So that hour died 
Like odour rapt into the winged wind 
Borne into alien lands and far away. 

There be some hearts so airily built, that they. 
They — when their love is wreck'd — if Love can 

wreck — 
On that sharp ridge of utmost doom ride highly 
Above the perilous seas of Change and Chance ; 
Nay, more, hold out the lights of cheerfulness ; 
As the tall ship, that many a dreary year 
Knit to some dismal sandbank far at sea. 
All thro' the livelong hours of utter dark. 
Showers slanting light upon the dolorous wave. 
For me — what light, what gleam on those black 

ways 
Where Love could walk with banish'd Hope no more ? 

It was ill-done to part you, Sisters fair ; 
Love's arms were wreath'd about the neck of Hope, 



166 THE LOVERS TALE, 

And Hope kissed Love, and Love drew in her 
breath | 

In that close kiss, and drank her whispered tales. " 
They said that Love would die when Hope was gone, 
And Love mourn'd long, and sorrowM after Hope ; 
At last she sought out Memory, and they trod 
The same old paths where Love had walk'd with 

Hope, 
And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears. 



1! 



THE LOVER'S TALE, 167 



II. 



From that time forth I would not see her more ; 
But many weary moons I lived alone — 
Alone, and in the heart of the great forest. 
Sometimes upon the hills beside the sea 
All day I watch'd the floating isles of shade, 
And sometimes on the shore, upon the sands 
Insensibly I drew her name, until 
The meaning of the letters shot into 
My brain ; anon the wanton billow wash'd 
Them over, till they faded like my love. 
The hollow caverns heard me — the black brooks 
Of the midforest heard me — the soft winds, 
Laden with thistledown and seeds of flowers. 
Paused in their course to^ hear me, for my voice 
Was all of thee : the merry linnet knew me, 
The squirrel knew me, and the dragonfly 
Shot by me like a flash of purple fire. 
The rough brier tore my bleeding palms ; the hem- 
lock, 
Brow-high, did strike my forehead as I past ; 
Yet trod I not the wildflower in my path, 
Nor bruised the wildbird's ^gg. 

Was this the end? 
Why grew we then together in one plot? 
Why fed we from one fountain? drew one sun? 
Why were our mothers' branches of one stem? 
Why were we one in all things, save in that 



168 THE LOVER'S TALE- 

Where to have been one had been the cope and 

crown 
Of all I hoped and feared? — if that same nearness 
Were father to this distance, and that one 
Vauntcourier to this double? if Affection 
Living slew Love, and Sympathy hew'd out 
The bosom-sepulchre of Sympathy? 

Chiefly I sought the cavern and the hill 
Where last we roamM together, for the sound 
Of the loud stream was pleasant, and the wind 
Came wooingly with woodbine smells. Sometimes 
All day I sat within the cavern-mouth, 
Fixing my eyes on those three cypress-cones 
That spired above the wood ; and with mad hand 
Tearing the bright leaves of the ivy-screen, 
I cast them in the noisy brook beneath, 
And watched them till they vanished from my sight 
Beneath the bower of wreathed eglantines : 
And all the fragments of the living rock 
(Huge blocks, which some old trembling of the world 
Had loosenM from the mountain, till they fell 
Half-digging their own graves) these in my agony 
Did I make bare of all the golden moss, 
Wherewith the dashing runnel in the spring 
Had liveried them all over. In my brain 
The spirit seem'd to flag from thought to thought, 
As moonlight wandering thro' a mist : my blood 
Crept like marsh drains thro' all my languid limbs ; 
The motions of my heart seemM far within me, 
Unfrequent, low, as tho' it told its pulses ; 



THE LOVER'S TALE, 169 

And yet it shook me, that my frame would shudder, 

As if 'twere drawn asunder by the rack. 

But over the deep graves of Hope and Fear, 

And all the broken palaces of the Past, 

Brooded one master-passion evermore, 

Like to a low-hung and a fiery sky 

Above some fair metropolis, earth-shock'd, — 

Hung round with ragged rims and burning folds, — 

Embathing all with wild and woful hues. 

Great hills of ruins, and collapsed masses 

Of thundershaken columns indistinct, 

And fused together in the tyrannous light — 

Ruins, the ruin of all my life and me ! 

Sometimes I thought Camilla was no more. 
Some one had told me she was dead, and ask'd 
If I would see her burial : then I seemed 
To rise, and through the forest-shadow borne 
With more than mortal swiftness, I ran down 
The steepy sea-bank, till I came upon 
The rear of a procession, curving round 
The silver-sheeted bay : in front of which 
Six stately virgins, all in white, upbare 
A broad earth-sweeping pall of whitest lawn, 
Wreathed round the bier with garlands : in the dis- 
tance. 
From out the yellow woods upon the hill 
Look'd forth the summit and the pinnacles 
Of a gray steeple — thence at intervals 
A low bell tolling. All the pageantry. 
Save those six virgins which upheld the bier, 



170 THE LOVER'S TALE. 



1 



Were stoled from head to foot in flowing black 

One walk'd abreast with me, and veiPd his brow, 

And he was loud in weeping and in praise 

Of her, we followed : a strong sympathy 

Shook all my soul : I flung myself upon him 

In tears and cries : I told him all my love, 

How I had loved her from the first ; whereat 

He shrank and howPd, and from his brow drew back 

His hand to push me from him ; and the face. 

The very face and form of Lionel 

Flashed thro' my eyes into my innermost brain. 

And at his feet I seem'd to faint and fall> 

To fall and die away. I could not rise 

Albeit I strove to follow. They past on. 

The lordly Phantasms 1 in their floating folds 

They past and were no more : but I had fallen 

Prone by the dashing runnel on the grass. 

Alway the inaudible invisible thought. 
Artificer and subject, lord and slave. 
Shaped by the audible and visible, 
Moulded the audible and visible ; 
All crisped sounds of wave and leaf and wind, 
Flatterd the fancy of my fading brain ; 
The cloud-pavilion'd element, the wood. 
The mountain, the three cypresses, the cave. 
Storm, sunset, glows and glories of the moon 
Below black firs, when silent-creeping winds 
Laid the long night in silver streaks and bars. 
Were wrought into the tissue of my dream : 
The moanings in the forest, the loud brook, 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 171 

Cries of the partridge like a rusty key 

Turn'd in a lock, owl-whoop and dorhawk-whirr 

Awoke me not, but were a part of sleep, 

And voices in the distance calling to me 

And in my vision bidding me dream on, 

Like sounds without the twilight realm of dreams, 

Which wander round the bases of the hills, 

And murmur at the low-dropt eaves of sleep, 

Half-entering the portals. Oftentimes 

The vision had fair prelude, in the end 

Opening on darkness, stately vestibules 

To caves and shows of Death : whether the mind, 

With some revenge — even to itself unknown, — 

Made strange division of its suffering 

With her, whom to have suffering viewed had been 

Extremest pain ; or that the clear-eyed Spirit, 

Being blunted in the Present, grew at length 

Prophetical and prescient of whatever 

The Future had in store : or that which most 

Enchains belief, the sorrow of my spirit 

Was of so wide a compass it took in 

All I had loved, and my dull agony, 

Ideally to her transferrM, became 

Anguish intolerable. 

The day waned ; 
Alone I sat with her : about my brow 
Her warm breath floated in the utterance 
Of silver-chorded tones: her lips were sunder'd 
With smiles of tranquil bliss, which broke in light 
Like morning from her eyes — her eloquent eyes, 



172 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

(As I have seen them many a hundred times) 
Fiird all with pure clear fire, thro' mine down 

rain'd 
Their spirit-searching splendours. As a vision 
Unto a haggard prisoner, iron-stay'd 
In damp and dismal dungeons underground. 
Confined on points of faith, when strength is 

shocked 
With torment, and expectancy of worse 
Upon the morrow, thro' the ragged walls, 
All unawares before his half-shut eyes, 
Comes in upon him in the dead of night, 
And with the excess of sweetness and of awe, 
Makes the heart tremble, and the sight run over 
Upon his steely gyves ; so those fair eyes 
Shone on my darkness, forms which ever stood 
Within the magic cirque of memory. 
Invisible but deathless, waiting still 
The edict of the will to reassume 
The semblance of those rare realities 
Of which they were the mirrors. Now the light 
Which was their life, burst through the cloud of 

thought 
Keen, irrepressible. 

It was a room 
Within the summer-house of which I spake. 
Hung round with paintings of the sea, and one 
A vessel in mid-ocean, her heaved prow 
Clambering, the mast bent and the ravin wind 
In her sail roaring. From the outer dav, 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 173 

Betwixt the close-set ivies came a broad 

And solid beam of isolated light, 

Crowded with driving atomies, and fell 

Slanting upon that picture, from prime youth 

Well-known well-loved. She drew it long ago 

Forthgazing on the waste and open sea, 

One morning when the upblown billow ran 

Shoreward beneath red clouds, and I had poured 

Into the shadowing penciPs naked forms 

Colour and life : it was a bond and seal 

Of friendship, spoken of with tearful smiles; 

A monument of childhood and of love ; 

The poesy of childhood ; my lost love 

SymboPd in storm. We gazed on it together 

In mute and glad remembrance, and each heart 

Grew closer to the other, and the eye 

Was riveted and charm-bound, gazing like 

The Indian on a still-eyed snake, low-couch'd — 

A beauty which is death ; when all at once 

That painted vessel, as with inner life. 

Began to heave upon that painted sea ; 

An earthquake, my loud heart-beats, made the 

ground 
Reel under us, and all at once, soul, life 
And breath and motion, past and flow'd away 
To those unreal billows : round and round 
A whirlwind caught and bore us ; mighty gyres 
Rapid and vast, of hissing spray wind-driven 
Far thro' the dizzy dark. Aloud she shriekM ; 
My heart was cloven with pain ; I wound my arms 
About her : we whirPd giddily ; the wind 



174 THE LOVER'S TALE, 

Sung ; but I claspM her without fear : her weight 
Shrank in my grasp, and over my dim eyes, 
And parted lips which drank her breath, down-hung 
The jaws of Death : I, groaning, from me flung 
Her empty phantom : all the sway and whirl 
Of the storm dropt to windless calm, and I 
Down welter'd thro' the dark ever and ever. 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 175 



III. 



I CAME one day and sat among the stones 
Strewn in the entry of the moaning cave ; 
A morning air, sweet after rain, ran over 
The rippHng levels of the lake, and blew 
Coolness and moistm*e and all smells of bud 
And foliage from the dark and dripping woods 
Upon my fever'd brows that shook and throbbed 
From temple unto temple. To what height 
The day had grown I know not. Then came on 

me 
The hollow tolling of the bell, and all 
The vision of the bier. As heretofore 
I walked behind with one who veiPd his brow. 
Methought by slow degrees the sullen bell 
Toird quicker, and the breakers on the shore 
Sloped into louder surf: those that went with me, 
And those that held the bier before my face. 
Moved with one spirit round about the bay. 
Trod swifter steps ; and while I walked with these 
In marvel at that gradual change, I thought 
Four bells instead of one began to ring, 
Four merry bells, four merry marriage-bells, 
In clanging cadence jangling peal on peal — 
A long loud clash of rapid marriage-bells. 
Then those who led the van, and those in rear, 



176 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

Rush'd into dance, and like wild Bacchanals 

Fled onward to the steeple in the woods : 

I, too, was borne along and felt the blast 

Beat on my heafed eyelids : all at once 

The front rank made a sudden halt ; the bells 

Lapsed into frightful stillness ; the surge fell 

From thunder into whispers ; those six maids 

With shrieks and ringing laughter on the sand 

Threw down the bier ; the woods upon the hill 

Waved with a sudden gust that sweeping down 

Took the edges of the pall, and blew it far 

Until it hung, a little silver cloud 

Over the sounding seas : I turnM : my heart 

Shrank in me, like a snowflake in the hand, 

Waiting to see the settled countenance 

Of her I loved, adorn'd with fading flowers. 

But she from out her death-like chrysalis, 

She from her bier, as into fresher life, 

My sister, and my cousin, and my love. 

Leapt lightly clad in bridal white — her hair 

Studded with one rich Provence rose — a light 

Of smiling welcome round her lips — her eyes 

And cheeks as bright as when she climb'd the 

hill. 
One hand she reachM to those that came behind, 
And while I mused nor yet endured to take 
So rich a prize, the man who stood with me 
Stept gaily forward, throwing down his robes, 
And claspt her hand in his : again the bells 
Jangled a'nd clang'd : again the stormy surf 
CrashM in the shingle : and the whirlin<2: rout 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 177 

Led by those two rusliM into dance, and fled 
Wind-footed to the steeple in the woods, 
Till they were swallow'd in the leafy bowers, 
And I stood sole beside the vacant bier. 

There, there, my latest vision — then the event ! 



THE LOVER'S TALE. 



IV. 

THE GOLDEN SUPPER.^ 

{Another speaks.) 

He flies the event : he leaves the event to me : 
Poor Julian — how he rush'd away ; the bells, 
Those marriage-bells, echoing in ear and heart — 
But cast a parting glance at me, you saw, 
As who should say " Continue." Well he had 
One golden hour — of triumph shall I say? 
Solace at least — before he left his home. 

Would you had seen him in that hour of his ! 
He moved thro' all of it majestically — 
Restrained himself quite to the close — but now — 

Whether they were his lady's marriage-bells, 

Or prophets of them in his fantasy, 

I never ask'd : but Lionel and the girl 

Were wedded, and our Julian came again 

Back to his mother's house among the pines. 

But these, their gloom, the mountains and the Bay, 

1 This poem is founded upon a story in Boccaccio. 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER, 179 

The whole land weighed him down as ^tna does 
The Giant of Mythology : he would go, 
Would leave the land for ever, and had gone 
Surely, but for a whisper, " Go not yet," 
Some warning — sent divinely — as it seem'd 
By that which followed — but of this I deem 
As of the visions that he told — the event 
Glanced back upon them in his after life, 
And partly made them — tho' he knew it not. 

And thus he stayM and would not look at her — 
No not for months : but, when the eleventh moon 
After their marriage lit the lover's Bay, 
Heard yet once more the tolling bell, and said. 
Would you could toll me out of life, but found — 
All softly as his mother broke it to him — 
A crueller reason than a crazy ear, 
For that low knell tolling his lady dead — 
Dead — and had lain three days without a pulse : 
All that lookM on her had pronounced her dead. 
And so they bore her (for in Julian's land 
They never nail a dumb head up in elm). 
Bore her free-faced to the free airs of heaven, 
And laid her in the vault of her own kin. 

What did he then? not die: he is here and 
hale — 
Not plunge headforemost from the mountain there, 
And leave the name of Lover's Leap : not he : 
He knew the meaning of the whisper now, 
Thought that he knew it. " This, I stay'd for this ; 



180 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

love, I have not seen you for so long. 
Now, now, will I go down into the grave, 

1 will be all alone with all I love. 

And kiss her on the lips. She is his no more : 
The dead returns to me, and I go down 
To kiss the dead." 

The fancy stirred him so 
He rose and went, and entering the dim vault, 
And, making there a sudden light, beheld 
All round about him that which all will be. 
The light was but a flash, and went again. 
Then at the far end of the vault he saw 
His lady with the moonlight on her face ; 
Her breast as in a shadow-prison, bars 
Of black and bands of silver, which the moon 
Struck from an open grating overhead 
High in the wall, and all the rest of her 
Drowned in the gloom and horror of the vault. 

" It was my wish," he said, " to pass, to sleep. 
To rest, to be with her — till the great day 
PeaPd on us with that music which rights all, 
And raised us hand in hand." And kneeling there 
Down in the dreadful dust that once was man. 
Dust, as he said, that once was loving hearts, 
Hearts that had beat with such a love as mine — 
Not such as mine, no, nor for such as her — 
He softly put his arm about her neck 
And kiss'd her more than once, till helpless death 
And silence made him bold — nay, but I wrong him 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 181 

He reverenced his dear lady even in death ; 

But, placing his true hand upon her heart, 

"' O, you warm heart,^' he moan'd, " not even death 

Can chill you all at once : " then starting, thought 

His dreams had come again. " Do I wake or sleep? 

Or am I made immortal, or my love 

Mortal once more ? " It beat — the heart — it beat : 

Faint — but it beat : at which his own began 

To pulse with such a vehemence that it drown'd 

The feebler motion underneath his hand. 

But when at last his doubts were satisfied. 

He raised her softly from the sepulchre. 

And, wrapping her all over with the cloak 

He came in, and now striding fast, and now 

Sitting awhile to rest, but evermore 

Holding his golden burthen in his arms. 

So bore her thro' the solitary land 

Back to the mother's house where she was born. 

There the good mother's kindly ministering. 
With half a night's appliances, recalPd 
Her fluttering life : she rais'd an eye that ask'd 
" Where ? '' till the things familiar to her youth 
Had made a silent answer : then she spoke 
" Here ! and how came I here? " and learning it 
(They told her somewhat rashly as I think) 
At once began to wander and to wail, 
" Ay, but you know that you must give me back : 
Send ! bid him come ; " but Lionel was away — 
Stung by his loss had vanished, none knew where. 
'' He casts me out," she wept, "and goes" — a wail 



182 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

That seeming something, yet was nothing, born 
Not from believing mind, but shatter^ nerve, 
Yet haunting Julian, as her own reproof 
At some precipitance in her burial. 
Then, when her own true spirit had returned, 
"Oh yes, and you,'' she said, " and none but you? 
For you have given me life and love again, 
And none but you yourself shall tell him of it, 
And you shall give me back when he returns." 
" Stay then a little,'' answer'd Julian, " here, 
And keep yourself, none knowing, to yourself; 
And I will do your will. I may not stay. 
No, not an hour ; but send me notice of him 
When he returns, and then will I return. 
And I will make a solemn offering of you 
To him you love." And faintly she replied, 
"And I will diO your will, and none shall know." 

Not know? with such a secret to be known. 
But all their house was old and loved them both, 
And all the house had known the loves of both ; 
Had died almost to serve them any way, 
And all the land was waste and solitary : 
And then he rode away ; but after this. 
An hour or two, Camilla's travail came 
Upon her, and that day a boy was born. 
Heir of his face and land, to Lionel. 

And thus our lonely lover rode away, 
And pausing at a hostel in a marsh. 
There fever seized upon him : myself was then 



THE GOLDEN SUFFER. 183 

Travelling that land, and meant to rest an hour ; 
And sitting down to such a base repast, 
It makes me angry yet to speak of it — 
I heard a groaning overhead, and climb'd 
The mouldered stairs (for everything was vile) 
And in a loft, with none to wait on him, 
Found, as it seem'd, a skeleton alone, 
Raving of dead men's dust and beating hearts. 

A dismal hostel in a dismal land, 
A flat malarian world of reed and rush ! 
But there from fever and my care of him 
Sprang up a friendship that may help us yet. 
For while we roam'd along the dreary coast, 
And waited for her message, piece by piece 
I learnt the drearier story of his life ; 
And, tho' he loved and honoured Lionel, 
Found that the sudden wail his lady made 
Dwelt in his fancy : did he know her worth. 
Her beauty even? should he not be taught, 
Ev'n by the price that others set upon it. 
The value of that jewel he had to guard ? 

Suddenly came her notice and we past, 
I with our lover to his native Bay. 

This love is of the brain, the mind, the soul : 
That makes the sequel pure ; tho' some of us 
Beginning at the sequel know no more. 
Not such am I : and yet I say the bird 
That will not hear mv call, however sweet, 



184 THE LOVERS TALE, 

But if my neighbour whistle answers him — 
What matter? there are others in the wood. 
Yet when I saw her (and I thought him crazed, 
Tho' not with such a craziness as needs 
A cell and keeper), those dark eyes of hers — 
Oh ! such dark eyes ! and not her eyes alone, 
But all from these to where she touched on earth, 
For such a craziness as Julian's looked 
No less than one divine apology. 

So sweetly and so modestly she came 
To greet us, her young hero in her arms ! 
" Kiss him," she said. " You gave me life again. 
He, but for you, had never seen it once. 
His other father you ! Kiss him, and then 
Forgive him, if his name be Julian too." 

Talk of lost hopes and broken heart ! his own 
Sent such a flame into his face, I knew 
Some sudden vivid pleasure hit him there. 

But he was all the more resolved to go, 
And sent at once to Lionel, praying him 
By that great love they both had borne the dead, 
To come and revel for one hour with him 
Before he left the land for evermore ; 
And then to friends — they were not many — who 

lived 
Scatteringly about that lonely land of his, 
And bad them to a banquet of farewells. 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 185 

And Julian made a solemn feast : I never 
Sat at a costlier ; for all round his hall 
From column on to column, as in a wood, 
Not such as here — an equatorial one, 
Great garlands swung and blossom'd ; and beneath, 
Heirlooms, and ancient miracles of Art, 
Chalice and salver, wines that. Heaven knows when, 
Had suckM the fire of some forgotten sun. 
And kept it thro' a hundred years of gloom, 
Yet glowing in a heart of ruby — cups 
Where nymph and god ran ever round in gold — 
Others of glass as costly — some with gems 
Movable and resettable at will, 
And trebling all the rest in value — Ah heavens ! 
Why need I tell you all ? — suffice to say 
That whatsoever such a house as his, 
And his was old, has in it rare or fair 
Was brought before the guest : and they, the guests, 
Wondered at some strange light in Julian's eyes 
(I told you that he had his golden hour). 
And such a feast, ill-suited as it seem'd 
To such a time, to Lionel's loss and his 
And that resolved self-exile from a land 
He never would revisit, such a feast 
So rich, so strange, and stranger ev'n than rich, 
But rich as for the nuptials of a king. 

And stranger yet, at one end of the hall 
Two great funereal curtains, looping down. 
Parted a little ere they met the floor. 
About a picture of his lady, taken 



186 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

Some years before, and falling hid the frame. 
And just above the parting was a lamp : 
So the sweet figure folded round with night 
Seem'd stepping out of darkness with a smile. 

Well then — our solemn feast — we ate and drank, 
And might — the wines being of such nobleness — 
Have jested also, but for Julian's eyes. 
And something weird and wild about it all : 
What was it? for our lover seldom spoke, 
Scarce touch'd the meats ; but ever and anon 
A priceless goblet with a priceless wine 
Arising, show'd he drank beyond his use ; 
And when the feast was near an end, he said : 

" There is a custom in the Orient, friends — 
I read of it in Persia — when a man 
Will honour those who feast with him, he brings 
And shows them whatsoever he accounts 
Of all his treasures the most beautiful, 
Gold, jewels, arms, whatever it may be. 
This custom " 

Pausing here a moment, all 
The guests broke in upon him with meeting hands 
And cries about the banquet — " Beautiful ! 
Who could desire more beauty at a feast?" 

The lover answered, "There is more than one 
Here sitting who desires it. Laud me not 
Before my time, but hear me to the close. 
This custom steps yet further when the guest 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 187 

Is loved and honoured to the uttermost. 
For after he hath shown him gems or gold, 
He brings and sets before him in rich guise 
That which is thrice as beautiful as these, 
The beauty that is dearest to his heart — 

* O my heart's lord, would I could show you,' he 

says, 

* Ev'n my heart too.' And I propose to-night 
To show you what is dearest to my heart, 
And my heart too. 

" But solve me first a doubt. 
I knew a man, nor many years ago ; 
He had a faithful servant, one who loved 
His master more than all on earth beside. 
He falling sick, and seeming close on death, 
His master would not wait until he died, 
But bad his menials bear him from the door, 
And leave him in the public way to die. 
I knew another, not so long ago, 
Who found the dying servant, took him home, 
And fed, and cherish'd him, and saved his life. 
I ask you now, should this first master claim 
His service, whom does it belong to.^^ him 
Who thrust him out, or him who saved his life? " 

This question, so flung down before the guests, 
And balanced either way by each, at length 
When some were doubtful how the law would hold, 
Was handed over by consent of all 
To one who had not spoken, Lionel. 



188 THE LOVER'S TALE. 

Fair speech was his, and delicate of phrase. 
And he beginning languidly — his loss 
Weight on him yet — but warming as he went, 
Glanced at the point of law, to pass it by, 
Affirming that as long as either lived, 
By all the laws of love and gratefulness, 
The service of the one so saved was due 
All to the saver — adding, with a smile, 
The first for many weeks — a semi-smile 
As at a strong conclusion — " body and soul 
And life and limbs, all his to work his will." 

Then Julian made a secret sign to me 
To bring Camilla down before them all. 
And crossing her own picture as she came, 
And looking as much lovelier as herself 
Is lovelier than all others — on her head 
A diamond circlet, and from under this 
A veil, that seemed no more than gilded air, 
Flying by each fine ear, an Eastern gauze 
With seeds of gold — so, with that grace of hers, 
Slow-moving as a wave against the wind. 
That flings a mist behind it in the sun — 
And bearing high in arms the mighty babe, 
The younger Julian, who himself was crown'd 
With roses, none so rosy as himself — 
And over all her babe and her the jewels 
Of many generations of his house 
Sparkled and flash'd, for he had decked them out 
As for a solemn sacrifice of love — 
So she came in : — I am long in telHng it. 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER, 189 

I never yet beheld a thing so strange, 

Sad, sweet, and strange together — floated in — 

While all the guests in mute amazement rose — 

And slowly pacing to the middle hall, 

Before the board, there paused and stood, her breast 

Hard-heaving, and her eyes upon her feet, 

Not daring yet to glance at Lionel. 

But him she carried, him nor lights nor feast 

Dazed or amazed, nor eyes of men ; who cared 

Only to use his own, and staring wide 

And hungering for the gilt and jewelPd world 

About him, look'd, as he is like to prove, 

When Julian goes, the lord of all he saw. 

" My guests," said Julian : " you are honour'd 
now 
Ev-n to the uttermost : in her behold 
Of all my treasures the most beautiful. 
Of all things upon earth the dearest to me." 
Then waving us a sign to seat ourselves, 
Led his dear lady to a chair of state. 
And I, by Lionel sitting, saw his face 
Fire, and dead ashes and all fire again 
Thrice in a second, felt him tremble too, 
And heard him muttering, " So like, so like ; 
She never had a sister. I knew none. 
Some cousin of his and hers — O God, so like ! " 
And then he suddenly ask'd her if she were. 
She shook, and cast her eyes down, and was dumb. 
And then some other questioned if she came 
From foreign lands, and still she did not speak. 



190 THE LOVERS TALE. 

Another, if the boy were hers : but she 

To all their queries answer'd not a word, 

Which made the amazement more, till one of them 

Said, shuddering, " Her spectre ! " But his friend 

RepHed, in half a whisper, " Not at least 

The spectre that will speak if spoken to. 

Terrible pity, if one so beautiful 

Prove, as I almost dread to find her, dumb ! " 

But Julian, sitting by her, answer'd all : 
" She is but dumb, because in her you see 
That faithful servant whom we spoke about. 
Obedient to her second master now ; 
Which will not last. I have here to-night a guest 
So bound to me by common love and loss — 
What ! shall I bind him more? in his behalf, 
Shall I exceed the Persian, giving him 
That which of all things is the dearest to me. 
Not only showing? and he himself pronounced 
That my rich gift is wholly mine to give. 

"Now all be dumb, and promise all of you 
Not to break in on what I say by word 
Or whisper, while I show you all my heart." 
And then began the story of his love 
As here to-day, but not so wordily — 
The passionate moment would not suffer that — 
Past thro' his visions to the burial ; thence 
Down to this last strange hour in his own hall . 
And then rose up, and with him all his guests 
Once more as by enchantment-; all but he. 



THE GOLDEN SUFFER. 191 

Lionel, who fain had risen, but fell again, 
And sat as if in chains — to whom he said : 

" Take my free gift, my cousin, for your wife ; 
And were it only for the giver's sake. 
And tho' she seem so like the one you lost, 
Yet cast her not away so suddenly, 
Lest there be none left here to bring her back : 
I leave this land for ever." Here he ceased. 

Then taking his dear lady by one hand. 
And bearing on one arm the noble babe, 
He slowly brought them both to Lionel. 
And there the widower husband and dead wife 
Rush'd each at each with a cry, that rather seem'd 
For some new death than for a life renewM ; 
Whereat the very babe began to wail ; 
At once they turn'd, and caught and brought him in 
To their charmM circle, and, half killing him 
With kisses, round him closed and claspt again. 
But Lionel, when at last he freed himself 
From wife and child, and lifted up a face 
All over glowing with the sun of life. 
And love, and boundless thanks — the sight of this 
So frighted our good friend, that turning to me 
And saying, '' It is over : let us go '^ — 
There were our horses ready at the doors — 
We bad them no farewell, but mounting these 
He past for ever from Lis native land ; 
And I with him, my Julian, back to mine. 






TO 

ALFRED TENNYSON, 

MY GRANDSON. 

Golden-HAIR'd Ally whose name is one with mine, 

Crazy with laughter and babble and earth's new wine, 

Now that the flower of a year and a half is thine, 

O little blossom, O mine, and mine of mine, 

Glorious poet who never hast written a line, 

Laugh, for the name at the head of my verse is thine. 

May'st thou never be wrong'd by the name that is mine ! 



BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS. 



THE FIRST QUARREL. 

(in the isle of wight.) 

I. 

" Wait a little," you say, " you are sure it'll all come 

right," 
But the boy was born i' trouble, an' looks so wan 

an' so white : 
Wait ! an' once I ha' waited — I hadn't to wait for 

long. 
Now I wait, wait, wait for Harry. — No, no, you are 

doing me wrong ! 
Harry and I were married : the boy can hold up his 

head, 
The boy was born in wedlock, but after my man was 

dead ; 
I ha' worked for him fifteen years, an' I work an' I 

wait to the end. 
I am all alone in the world, an' you are my onl^ 

friend. 



194 THE FIRST QUARREL. 

II. 

Doctor, if you can wait, Fll tell you the tale o' my 

life. 
When Harry an' I were children, he calPd me his 

own little wife ; 
I was happy when I was with him, an' sorry when he 

was away, 
An' when we play'd together, I loved him better than 

play ; 
He workt me the daisy chain — he made me the 

cowslip ball. 
He fought the boys that were rude, an' I loved him 

better than all. 
Passionate girl tho' I was, an' often at home in dis- 
grace, 
I never could quarrel with Harry — I had but to look 

in his face. 

III. 

There was a farmer in Dorset of Harry's kin, that 

had need 
Of a good stout lad at his farm ; he sent, an' the 

father agreed ; 
So Harry was bound to the Dorsetshire farm for 

years an' for years ; 
I walked with him down to the quay, poor lad, an' 

we parted in tears. 
The boat was beginning to move, we heard them a- 

ringing the bell, 
" I'll never love any but you, God bless you, my 

own little Nell." 



THE FIRST QUARREL, 195 

IV. 

I was a child, an' he was a child, an' he came to harm ; 
There was a girl, a hussy, that workt with him up 

at the farm, 
One had deceived her an' left her alone with her sin 

an' her shame, 
And so she was wicked with Harry ; the girl was the 

most to blame. 

V. 

And years went over till I that was little had grown 

so tall, 
The men would say of the maids, '' Our Nelly's the 

flower of 'em all." 
I didn't take heed o' them^ but I taught myself all I 

could 
To make a good wife for Harry, when Harry came 

home for good. 

VI. 

Often I seem'd unhappy, and often as happy too, 
For I heard it abroad in the fields '' I'll never love 

any but you ; " 
" I'll never love any but you " the morning song of 

the lark, 
" ril never love any but you " the nightingale's hymn 

in the dark. 

VII. 

And Harry came home at last, but he look'd at me 
sidelong and shy, 



196 THE FIRST QUARREL. 

Vext me a bit, till he told me that so many years 

had gone by, 
I had grown so handsome and tall — that I might 

ha' forgot him somehow — 
For he thought — there were other lads — he was 

fear'd to look at me now. 

VIII. 

Hard was the frost in the field, we were married o' 

Christmas day, 
Married among the red berries, an' all as merry as 

May — 
Those were the pleasant times, my house an' my 

man were my pride. 
We seem'd like ships i' the Channel a-sailing with 

wind an' tide. 

IX. 

But work was scant in the Isle, tbo' he tried the 

villages round, 
So Harry went over the Solent to see if work could 

be found ; 
An' he wrote, '' I ha' six weeks' work, little wife, so 

far as I know ; 
I'll come for an hour to-morrow, an' kiss you before 

I go." 



So I set to righting the house, for wasn't he coming 
that day.^ 



THE FIRST QUARREL. 197 

An' I hit on an old deal-box that was pushed in a 

corner away, 
It was full of old odds an' ends, an' a letter along 

wi' the rest, 
I had better ha' put my naked hand in a hornets' 

nest. 

XI. 

"Sweetheart" — this was the letter — this was the 

letter I read — 
" You promised to find me work near you, an' I wish 

I was dead — 
Didn't you kiss me an' promise ? you haven't done 

it, my lad, 
An' I almost died o' your going away, an' I with 

that I had." 

XII. 

I too wish that I had — in the pleasant times that 

had past, 
Before I quarrell'd with Harry — my quarrel — the 

first an' the last. 

XIII. 

For Harry came in, an' I flung him the letter that 

drove me wild, 
An' he told me all at once, as simple as any child, 
"What can it matter, my lass, what I did wi' my 

single life? 
I ha' been as true to you as ever a man to his wife ; 



198 THE FIRST QUARREL. 

KyU she wasnH one o' the worst." "Then,*' 1 said,] 

" Tm none o' the best." 
An' he smiled at me, "Ain't you, my love? Come,! 

come, little wife, let it rest ! 
The man isn't like the woman, no need to makej 

such a stir." 
But he anger'd me all the more, an' I said " You 

were keeping with her. 
When I was a-loving you all along an' the same as 

before." 
An' he didn't speak for a while, an' he anger'd me 

more and more. 
Then he patted my hand in his gentle way, " Let 

bygones be ! " 
" Bygones ! you kept yours hush'd," I said, " when 

you married me ! 
By-gones ma' be come-agains ; an' she — in her 

shame an' her sin — 
You'll have her to nurse my child, if I die o' my 

lying in ! 
You'll make her its second mother! I hate her — 

an' I hate you ! " 
Ah, Harry, my man, you had better ha' beaten me 

black an' blue 
Than ha' spoken as kind as you did, when I were so 

crazy wi' spite, 
"Wait a little, my lass, I am sure it 'ill all come 

right." 



THE FIRST QUARREL, 199 

XIV. 

An' he took three turns in the rain, an' I watch'd 

him, an' when he came in 
I felt that my heart was hard, he was all wet thro' to 

the skin, 
An' I never said " off wi' the wet," I never said " on 

wi' the dry," 
So I knew my heart was hard, when he came to bid 

me goodbye. 
" You said that you hated me, Ellen, but that isn't 

true, you know ; 
I am going to leave you a bit — you'll kiss me before 

I go?" 

XV. 

"Going! you're going to her — kiss her — if you 

will," I said, — 
I was near my time wi' the boy, I must ha' been 

light i' my head — 
" I had sooner be cursed than kiss'd ! " — I didn't 

know well what I meant, 
But I turn'd my face from him, an' he turn'd his face 

an' he went. 



XVI. 

And then he sent me a letter, " I've gotten my work 

to do ; 
You wouldn't kiss me, my lass, an' I never loved 

any but you ; 



200 THE FIRST QUARREL. 

I am sorry for all the quarrel an' sorry for what she 

wrote, 
I ha' six weeks' work in Jersey an' go to-night by 

the boat." 



XVII. 

An' the wind began to rise, an' I thought of him out 

at sea, 
An' I felt I had been to blame ; he was always kind 

to me. 
*'Wait a little, my lass, I am sure it 'ill all come 

right " — 
An' the boat went down that night — the boat went 

down that ni2;ht. 



RIZFAH. 201 



RIZPAH. 
17—. 



Wailing, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and 

sea — 
And Willy's voice in the wind, "O mother, come 

out to me." 
Why should he call me to-night, when he knows 

that I cannot go ? 
For the downs are as bright as day, and the full 

moon stares at the snow. 



II. 

We should be seen, my dear ; they would spy us 

out of the town. 
The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing 

over the down, 
When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by 

the creak of the chain, 
And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself 

drenched with the rain. 



202 RIZPAH. 

III. 

Anything fallen again? nay— what was there left to 

fall? 
I have taken them home, I have numbered the bones, 

I have hidden them all. 
What am I saying? and what are you f do you come 

as a spy ? 
Falls ? what falls ? who knows ? As the tree falls so 

must it lie. 



IV. 

Who let her in? how long has she been? you — 

what have you heard ? 
Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a 

word. 

— to pray with me — yes — a lady — none of their 

spies — 
But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to 
darken my eyes. 

V. 

Ah — you, that have lived so soft, what should you 

know of the night, 
The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost 

and the fright? 

1 have done it, while you were asleep — you were 

only made for the day. 
I have gathered my baby together — and now you 
may go your way. 



RIZPAH, 203 

VI. 

Nay — for it's kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old 

dying wife. 
But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour 

of life. 
I kiss'd my boy in the prison, before he went out to 

die. 
"They dared me to do it," he said, and he never 

has told me a lie. 
I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he 

was but a child — 
" The farmer dared me to do it," he said ; he was 

always so wild — 
And idle — and couldn't be idle — my Willy — he 

never could rest. 
The King should have made him a soldier, he would 

have been one of his best. 

VII. 

But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never 

v»rould let him be good ; 
They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he 

swore that he would ; 
And he took no life, but he took one purse, and 

when all was done 
He flung it among his fellows — Til none of it, said 

my son. 

VIII. 

I came into court to the Judge and the lawyers. I 
told them my tale, 



204 jRIZPAH, 

God's own truth — but they kilPd him, they kilPd 

him for robbing the mail. 
They hang'd him in chains for a show — we had al- 
ways borne a good name — 
To be hangM for a thief — and then put away — 

isn't that enough shame ? 
Dust to dust — low down — let us hide ! but they 

set him so high 
That all the ships of the world could stare at him, 

passing by. 
God 'ill pardon the hell-back raven and horrible 

fowls of the air, 
But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill'd him 

and hang'd him there. 



IX. 

And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my 

last goodbye ; 
They had fasten'd the door of his cell. " O mother ! " 

I heard him cry. 
I couldn't get back tho' I tried, he had something 

further to say, 
And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced 

me away. 



Then since I couldn't but hear that cry of my boy 

that was dead, 
They seized me and shut me up : they fasten'd me 

down on my bed. 



RIZPAH. 205 

" Mother, O mother ! " — he call'd in the dark to 

me year after year — 
They beat me for that, they beat me — you know 

that I couldnH but hear ; 
And then at the last they found I had grown so 

stupid and still 
They let me abroad again— but the creatures had 

worked their will. 



XI. 

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone 

was left — 
I stole them all from the lawyers — and you, will you 

call it a theft ? — 
My baby, the bones that had suck'd me, the bones 

that had laughed and had cried — 
Theirs ? O no ! they are mine — not theirs — they 

had moved in my side. 



XII. 

Do you think I was scared by the bones? I kiss'd 

'em, I buried 'em all — 
I can't dig deep, I am old — in the night by the 

churchyard wall. 
My Willy 'ill rise up whole when the trumpet of 

judgment 'ill sound, 
But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy 

ground. 



206 RIZPAH. 



XIII. 



They would scratch him up — they would hang him 

again on the cursed tree. 
Sin ? O yes — we are sinners, I know — let all that be, 
And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's good will 

toward men — 
" Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord " — let me 

hear it again ; 
"Full of compassion and mercy — long-suffering." 

Yes, O yes ! 
For the lawyer is born but to murder — the Saviour 

lives but to bless. 
HeVi never put on the black cap except for the worst 

of the worst, 
And the first may be last — I have heard it in church 

— and the last may be first. 
Suffering — O long-suffering — yes, as the Lord must 

know. 
Year after year in the mist and the wind and the 

shower and the snow. 

XIV. 

Heard, have you? what? they have told you he 

never repented his sin. 
How do they know it? are they his mother? 2iX^ you 

of his kin? 
Heard ! have you ever heard, when the storm on the 

downs began, 
The wind that 'ill wail like a child and the sea that 

Mil moan like a man? 



RIZPAH. 207 

XV. 

Election, Election and Reprobation — ifs all very 

well. 
But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him 

in Hell. 
For I cared so much for my boy that the Lord has 

look'd into my care, 
And He means me I'm sure to be happy with Willy, 

I know not where. 



XVI. 

And if he be lost — but to save my soul, that is all 

your desire : 
Do you think that I care for my soul if my boy be 

gone to the fire ? 
I have been with God in the dark — go, go, you 

may leave me alone — 
You never have borne a child — you are just as hard 

as a stone. 

XVII. 

Madam, I beg your pardon ! I think that you mean 

to be kind, 
But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice 

in the wind — 
The snow and the sky so bright — he used but to 

call in the dark. 
And he calls to me now from the church and not 

from the gibbet — for hark I 



208 RIZPAH, 

Nay — you can hear it yourself - 

shaking the walls — 
Willy — the moon's in a cloud Good-night. I 

am going. He calls. 



THE NORTHERN COBBLER, 209 



THE NORTHERN COBBLER. 



Waait till our Sally cooms in, fur thou mun a^ 

sights 1 to tell. 
Eh, but I be maain gla^d to seea tha sa 'arty an' 

well. 
" Cast awaay on a disolut land wi' a vartical soon ^I " 
Strange fur to goa fur to think what saailors a' seean 

an' a' doon ; 
<' Summat to drink — sa' 'ot?" I 'a nowt but 

Adam's wine : 
What's the 'eat o' this little 'ill-side to the 'eat o' 

the line? 

II. 

*^ What's i' tha bottle a-stanning theer?" I'll tell 

tha. Gin. 
But if thou wants thy grog, tha mun goa fur it down 

to the inn. 

1 The vowels a'i, pronounced separately though in the closest 
conjunction, best render the sound of the long / andj in this dia- 
lect. But since such words as craiin\ daiin\ wha'i, a'i (I), etc., 
look awkward except in a page of express phonetics, I have thought 
it better to leave the simple i and y, and to trust that my readers will 
give them the broader pronunciation. 

2 The 00 short, as in " wood*** 



210 THE NORTHERN COBBLER, 

Naay — fur I be maain-glad, but thaw tha was iver 

sa dry, 
Thou gits naw gin fro' the bottle theer, an' Til tell 

tha why. 

ni. 

Mea an' thy sister was married, when wur it? back- 
end o' June, 

Ten year sin', and wa 'greed as well as a fiddle i' 
tune : 

I could fettle and clump owd booots and shoes wi' 
the best on 'em all, 

As fer as fro' Thursby thurn hup to Harmsby and 
Hutterby Hall. 

We was busy as beeas i' the bloom an' as 'appy as 
'art could think, 

An' then the babby wur burn, and then I taakes to 
the drink. 



IV. 

An' I weant gaainsaay it, my lad, thaw I be hafe 

shaamed on it now. 
We could sing a good song at the Plow, we could 

sing a good song at the Plow ; 
Thaw once of a frosty night I slither'd an' hurted 

my huck.i 
An' I coom'd neck-and-crop soomtimes slaape down 

i' the squad an' the muck : 

1 Hip. 



THE NORTHERN COBBLER. 211 

An' once I fowt wi' the Taailor — not hafe ov a 

man, my lad — 
Fur he scrawm'd an' scratted my faace like a cat, 

an' it maade 'er sa mad 
That Sally she turn'd a tongue-banger,^ an' raated 

ma, " Sottin' thy braains 
Guzzlin' an' soakin' an' smoakin' an' hawmin' 2 

about i' the laanes, 
Soa sow-droonk that tha doesn not touch thy 'at to 

the Squire ; " 
An' I loook'd cock-eyed at my noase an' I seead 'im 

a-gittin' o' fire ; 
But sin' I wur hallus i' liquor an' hallus as droonk as 

a king, 
Foalks' coostom flitted awaay like a kite wi' a brok- 

ken string. 

V. 

An' Sally she wesh'd foalks' cloaths to keep the 

wolf fro' the door. 
Eh but the moor she riled me, she druv me to drink 

the moor, 
Fur I fun', when 'er back wur turn'd, wheer Sally's 

owd stockin' wur 'id, 
An' I grabb'd the munny she maade, and I wear'd it 

o' liquor, I did. 

VI. 

An' one night I cooms 'oam like a bull gotten loose 
at a faair, 

1 Scold. 2 Lounging. 



212 THE NORTHERN COBBLER, 

An' she wur a-waaitin' fo'mma, an' cryin' and teairin' 

'er 'aair, 
An' I tummled athurt the craadle an' swear'd as I'd 

break ivry stick 
O' furnitur 'ere i' the 'ouse, an' I gied our Sally a 

kick, 
An' I mash'd the taables an' chairs, an' she an' the 

babby beard,^ 
Fur I knaw'd naw moor what I did nor a mortal 

beast o' the feald. 



VII. 

An' when I waaked i' the murnin' I seead that our 

Sally went laamed 
Cos' o' the kick as I gied 'er, an' I wur dreadful 

ashaamed ; 
An' Sally wur sloomy ^ an' draggle taaiPd in an 

owd turn gown, 
An' the babby's faace wurn't wesh'd an' the 'ole 

'ouse hupside down. 

VIII. 

An' then I minded our Sally so pratty an' neat an' 

sweeat, 
Straat as a pole an' clean as a flower fro' 'ead to 

feeat : 
An' then I minded the fust kiss I gied 'er by Thurs- 

by thurn ; 

1 Bellowed, cried out. ^ Sluggish, out of spirits. 



THE NORTHERN COBBLER. 213 

Theer wur a lark a-singin' 'is best of a Sunday at 

murn, 
Couldn't see 'im, we 'eard Hm a-mountin' oop 'igher 

an' 'igher, 
An' then 'e turned to the sun, an' 'e shined like a 

sparkle o' fire. 
" Doesn't tha see 'im," she axes, " fur I can see 'im ? " 

an' I 
Seead nobbut the smile o' the sun as danced in 'er 

pratty blue eye ; 
An' I says " I mun gie tha a kiss," an' Sally says 

" Noa, thou moant," 
But I gied 'er a kiss, an' then anoother, an' Sally 

says " doant ! " 

IX. 

An' when we coom'd into Meeatin', at fust she wur 

all in a tew. 
But, arter, we sing'd the 'ymn togither like birds on 

a beugh ; 
An' Muggins 'e preach'd o' Hell-fire an' the loov o' 

God fur men. 
An' then upo' coomin' awaay Sally gied me a kiss 

ov 'ersen. 

X. 

Heer wur a fall fro' a kiss to a kick like Saatan as 

fell 
Down out o' heaven i' Hell-fire — thaw theer's naw 

drinkin' i' Hell : 



214 THE NORTHERN COBBLER. 

Mea fur to kick our Sally as kep the wolf fro^ the 

door, 
All along o' the drink, fur I loov'd 'er as well as 

afoor. 

XI. 

Sa like a graat num-cumpus I blubber'd awaay o' 

the bed — 
" Weant niver do it naw moor ; " an' Sally loookt 

up an' she said, 
" ril upowd it 1 tha weant ; thou'rt like the rest o' 

the men, 
Thou'll goa sniffin' about the tap till tha does it 

agean. 
Theer's thy hennemy, man, an' I knaws, as knaws 

tha sa well, 
That, if tha seeas 'im an' smells 'im tha'll foller 'im 

slick into Hell." 



XII. 

*' Naay," says I, " fur I weant goa sniffin' about the 

tap." 
"Weant tha?" she says, an' mysen I thowt i' mysen 

" mayhap." 
" Noa : " an' I started awaay like a shot, an' down 

to the Hinn, 
An' I browt what tha seeas stannin' theer, yon big 

black bottle o' gin. 

1 I'll uphold it. 



THE NORTHERN COBBLER, 215 

XIII. 

" That caps owt," ^ says Sally, an' saw she begins to 

cry, 
But I puts it inter 'er 'ands an' I says to 'er, " Sally,'' 

says I, 
" Stan' 'im theer i' the naame o' the Lord an' the 

power ov 'is Graace, 
Stan' 'im theer, fur I'll loook my hennemy strait i' 

the faace, 
Stan' 'im theer i' the winder, an' let ma loook at 'im 

then, 
'E seeams naw moor nor watter, an' 'e's the Divil's 

can sen." 

XIV. 

An' I wur down i' tha mouth, couldn't do naw work 

an' all, 
Nasty an' snaggy an' shaaky, an' poonch'd my 'and 

wi' the hawl. 
But she wur a power o' coomfut, an' sattled 'ersen o' 

my knee, 
An' coaxd an' coodled me oop till agean I feel'd 

my sen free. 

XV. 

An' Sally she telPd it about, an' foalk stood a-gaw- 
min' 2 in, 

1 That's beyond everything. ^ Staring vacantly. 



216 THE NORTHERN COBBLER, 

As thaw it wur summat bewitch'd istead of a quart 

o' gin ; 
An' some on 'em said it wur watter — an' I wur 

chousin' the wife, 
Fur I couldn't 'owd 'ands off gin, wur it nobbut to 

saave my life ; 
An' blacksmith 'e strips me the thick ov 'is airm, an 

'e shaws it to me, 
" Feeal thou this ! thou can't graw this upo' wat- 
ter !" says he. 
An' Doctor 'e calls o' Sunday an' just as candles 

was lit, 
** Thou moant do it," he says, " tha mun break 'im 

off bit by bit." 
**Thou'rt but a Methody-man," says Parson, and 

laays down 'is 'at, 
An' 'e points to the bottle o' gin, " but I respecks 

tha fur that ; " 
An' Squire, his oan very sen, walks down fro' the 

'AH to see, 
An' 'e spanks 'is 'and into mine, "fur I respecks 

tha," says 'e ; 
An' coostom agean draw'd in like a wind fro' far an' 

wide. 
And browt me the booots to be cobbled fro' hafe 

the coontryside. 



XVI. 

An' theer 'e stans an' theer 'e shall stan to my dyin[^ 
daay ; 



THE NORTHERN COBBLER, 217 

I 'a gotten to loov 'im ageain in anoother kind of a 

waay, 
Proud on 'im, like, my lad, an' I keeaps 'im clean 

an' bright, 
Loovs 'im, an' roobs 'im, an' doosts 'im, an' puts 'im 

back i' the light. 

XVII. 

Wouldn't a pint a' sarved as well as a quart? Naw 

doubt : 
But I liked a bigger feller to fight wi' an' fowt it out. 
Fine an' meller 'e mun be by this, if I cared to 

taaste, 
But I moant, my lad, and I weant, fur I'd feal mysen 

clean disgraaced. 

XVIII. 

An' once I said to the Missis, " My lass, when I 

cooms to die. 
Smash the bottle to smithers, the Divil's in 'im," 

said I. 
But arter I chaanged my mind, an' if Sally be left 

aloan, 
I'll hev 'im a-buried wi'mma an' taake 'im afoor the 

Throan. 

XIX. 

Coom thou 'eer — yon laady a-steppin' along the 

streeat. 
Doesn't tha knaw 'er — sa pratty, an' feat, an' neat, 

an' sweeat? 



218 THE NORTHERN COBBLER. 

Look at the cloaths on 'er back, thebbe ammost 

spick-span-new, 
An' Tommy's faace be as fresh as a codlin wesh'd P 

the dew. 



XX. 

'Ere be our Sally an' Tommy, an' we be a-goin to 

dine, 
Baacon an' taates, an' a beslings-puddin' ^ an' Adam's 

wine ; 
But if tha wants ony grog tha mun goa fur it down 

to the Hinn, 
Fur I weant shed a drop on 'is blood, noa, not fur 

Sally's oan kin. 

^ A pudding made with the first milk of the cow after calving. 



THE REVENGE, 219 



THE REVENGE. 

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET. 
I. 

At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville 
lay, 

And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying 
from far away : 

" Spanish ships of war at sea ! we have sighted fifty- 
three ! " 

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard : " 'Fore God I 
am no coward ; 

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out 
of gear, 

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but fol- 
low quick. 

We are six ships of the line ; can we fight with fifty- 
three?" 

II. 

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville : " I know you 

are no coward ; 
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. 
But Fve ninety men and more that are lying sick 

ashore. 



220 THE REVENGE. 

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my 

Lord Howard, 
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of 

Spain." 

III. 

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war 

that day, 
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer 

heaven ; 
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from 

the land 
Very carefully and slow, 
Men of Bideford in Devon, 
And we laid them on the ballast down below ; 
For we brought them all aboard, 
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not 

left to Spain, 
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of 

the Lord. 

IV. 

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship 

and to fight, 
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard 

came in sight, 
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather 

bow. 
" Shall we fight or shall we fly? 
Good Sir Richard, tell us now. 



THE REVENGE, 11\ 

For to fight is but to die ! 

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be 

set." 
And Sir Richard said again : " We be all good 

English men. 
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of 

the devil, 
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet." 



Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a 
hurrah, and so 

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of 
the foe, 

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety 
sick below ; 

For half of their fleet to the right and half to the 
left were seen, 

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea- 
lane between. 



VI. 

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their 

decks and laugh'd, 
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad 

little craft 
Running on and on, till delay'd 
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen 

hundred tons, 



222 THE REVENGE. 

And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning 

tiers of guns, 
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd. 

VII. 

And while now the great San Philip hung above us 
like a cloud 

Whence the thunderbolt will fall 

Long and loud, 

Four galleons drew away 

From the Spanish fleet that day, 

And two upon the larboard and two upon the star- 
board lay, 

And the battle-thunder broke from them all. 

VIII. 

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought her- 
self and went 

Having that within her womb that had left her ill 
content ; 

And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought 
us hand to hand, 

For a dozen times they came with their pikes and 
musqueteers. 

And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that 
shakes his ears 

When he leaps from the water to the land. 

IX. 

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far 
over the summer sea, 



THE REVENGE, 223 

But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and 

the fifty-three. 
Ship after ship the whole night long, their high-built 

galleons came, 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her 

battle-thunder and flame ; 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back 

with her dead and her shame. 
For some were sunk and many were shattered, and 

so could fight us no more — 
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the 

world before ? 



For he said " Fight on ! fight on ! " 
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck ; 
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer 

night was gone, 
With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the 

deck. 
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly 

dead, 
And himself he was wounded again in the side and 

the head. 
And he said " Fight on ! fio^ht on ! " 



XI. 

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out 
far over the summer sea, 



224 THE REVENGE, 

And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round 

us all in a ring ; 
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd 

that we still could sting, 
So they watch'd what the end would be. 
And we had not fought them in vain, 
But in perilous plight were we, 
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, 
And half of the rest of us maim'd for life 
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate 

strife ; 
And the sick men down in the hold were most of 

them stark and cold, 
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the 

powder was all of it spent ; [side ; 

And the masts and the rigging were lying over the 
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride, 
" We have fought such a fight for a day and a night 
As may never be fought again ! 
We have won great glory, my men ! 
And a day less or more 
At sea or ashore. 
We die — does it matter when ? 
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner — sink her, split 

her in twain ! 
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of 

Spain ! " 

XII. 

And the gunner said " Ay, ay," but the seamen 
made reply : 



THE REVENGE. 225 

" We have children, we have wives, 
And the Lord hath spared our lives. 
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to 

let us go ; 
We shall live to fight again and to strike another 

blow." 
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to 

the foe. 

XIII. 

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore 

him then, 
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard 

caught at last, 
And they praised him to his face with their courtly 

foreign grace ; 
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried : 
" I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant 

man and true ; 
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do : 
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die ! " 
And he fell upon their decks, and he died. 

XIV. 

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant 
and true. 

And had holden the power and glory of Spain so 
cheap 

That he dared her with one little ship and his Eng- 
lish few ; 



226 THE REVENGE. 

Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught 

they knew, 
But they sank his body with honour down into the 

deep, 
And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier 

alien crew, 
And away she saiPd with her loss and long'd for her 

own ; 
When a wind from the lands they had ruinM awoke 

from sleep, 
And the water began to heave and the weather to 

moan, 
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, 
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earth- 
quake grew. 
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their 

masts and their flags, 
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot- 

shatter'd navy of Spain, 
And the little Revenge herself went down by the 

island crags 
To be lost evermore in the main. 



THE SISTERS. 227 



THE SISTERS. 

They have left the doors ajar; and by their clash, 

And prelude on the keys, I know the song, 

Their favourite — which I call ^' The Tables 

Turned." 
Evelyn begins it '' O diviner Air." 

EVELYN. 

O diviner Air, 

Thro' the heat, the drowth, the dust, the glare, 

Far from out the west in shadowing showers, 

Over all the meadow baked and bare, 

Making fresh and fair 

All the bowers and the flowers, 

Fainting flowers, faded bowers, 

Over all this weary world of ours. 

Breathe, diviner Air! 

A sweet voice that — you scarce could better that. 
Now follows Edith echoing Evelyn. 

EDITH. 

O diviner light, 

Thro' the cloud that roofs our noon with night. 

Thro' the blotting mist, the blinding showers, 



228 THE SISTERS. 

Far from out a sky for ever bright, 
Over all the woodland's flooded bowers. 
Over all the meadow's drowning flowers, 
Over all this ruin'd world of ours, 
Break, diviner light ! 

Marvellously like, their voices — and themselves ! 

Tho' one is somewhat deeper than the other. 

As one is somewhat graver than the other — 

Edith than Evelyn. Your good Uncle, whom 

You count the father of your fortune, longs 

For this alliance : let me ask you then, 

Which voice most takes you ? for I do not doubt 

Being a watchful parent, you are taken 

With one or other : tho' sometimes I fear 

You may be flickering, fluttering in a doubt 

Between the two — which must not be — which 

might 
Be death to one : they both are beautiful : 
Evelyn is gayer, wittier, prettier, says 
The common voice, if one may trust it : she ? 
No ! but the paler and the graver, Edith. 
Woo her and gain her then : no wavering, boy ! 
The graver is perhaps the one for you 
Who jest and laugh so easily and so well. 
For love will go by contrast, as by likes. 

No sisters ever prized each other more. 
Not so : their mother and her sister loved 
More passionately still. 

But that my best 



THE SISTERS. 229 

And oldest friend, your Uncle, wishes it, 

And that I know you worthy everyway 

To be my son, I might, perchance, be loath 

To part them, or part from them : and yet one 

Should marry, or all the broad lands in your view 

From this bay window — which our house has held 

Three hundred years — will pass collaterally. 

My father with a child on either knee, 
A hand upon the head of either child. 
Smoothing their locks, as golden as his own 
Were silver, " get them wedded " would he say. 
And once my prattling Edith ask'd him "why?" 
Ay, why? said he, " for why should I go lame?" 
Then told them of his wars, and of his wound. 
For see — this wine — the grape from whence it 

flow'd 
Was blackening on the slopes of Portugal, 
When that brave soldier, down the terrible ridge 
Plunged in the last fierce charge at Waterloo, 
And caught the laming bullet. He left me this, 
Which yet retains a memory of its youth. 
As I of mine, and my first passion. Come ! 
Here's to your happy union with my child ! 

Yet must you change your name : no fault of 
mine ! 
You say that you can do it as willingly 
As birds make ready for their bridal-time 
By change of feather : for all that, my boy. 
Some birds are sick and sullen when they moult. 



230 THE SISTERS. 

An old and worthy name ! but mine that stirr'd 
Among our civil wars and earlier too 
Among the Roses, the more venerable. 
/ care not for a name — no fault of mine. 
Once more — a happier marriage than my own I 

You see yon Lombard poplar on the plain. 
The highway running by it leaves a breadth 
Of sward to left and right, where, long ago. 
One bright May morning in a world of song, 
I lay at leisure, watching overhead 
The aerial poplar wave, an amber spire. 

I dozed ; I woke. An open landaulet 
WhirPd by, which, after it had past me, showed 
Turning my way, the loveliest face on earth. 
The face of one there sitting opposite, 
On whom I brought a strange unhappiness, 
That time I did not see. 

Love at first sight 
May seem — with goodly rhyme and reason for it — 
Possible — at first glimpse, and for a face 
Gone in a moment — strange. Yet once, when first 
I came on lake Llanberris in the dark, 
A moonless night with storm — one lightning-fork 
Flashed out the lake ; and tho' I loiter'd there 
The full day after, yet in retrospect 
That less than momentary thunder-sketch 
Of lake and mountain conquers all the day. 



THE SISTERS. 231 

The Sun himself has limn'd the face for me. 
Not quite so quickly, no, nor half as well. 
For look you here — the shadows are too deep, 
And like the critic's blurring comment make 
The veriest beauties of the work appear 
The darkest faults : the sweet eyes frown : the lips 
Seem but a gash. My sole memorial 
Of Edith — no, the other, — both indeed. 

So that bright face was flashed thro' sense and 

soul 
And by the poplar vanished — to be found 
Long after, as it seem'd, beneath the tall 
Tree-bowers, and those long-sweeping beechen 

boughs 
Of our New Forest. I was there alone : 
The phantom of the whirling landaulet 
For ever past me by : when one quick peal 
Of laughter drew me thro' the glimmering glades 
Down to the snowlike sparkle of a cloth 
On fern and foxglove. Lo, the face again, 
My Rosalind in this Arden — Edith — all 
One bloom of youth, health, beauty, happiness, 
And moved to merriment at a passing jest. 

There one of those about her knowing me 
CalPd me to join them ; so with these I spent 
What seem'd my crowning hour, my day of days. 

I woo'd her then, nor unsuccessfully. 
The worse for her, for me ! was I content .f* 



232 THE SISTERS. 

Ay — no, not quite ; for now and then I thought 

Laziness, vague love-longings, the bright May, 

Had made a heated haze to magnify 

The charm of Edith — that a man^s ideal 

Is high in Heaven, and lodged with Plato's God, 

Not findable here — content, and not content, 

In some such fashion as a man may be 

That having had the portrait of his friend 

Drawn by an artist, looks at it and says, 

" Good ! very like ! not altogether he." 

As yet I had not bound myself by words, 
Only, believing I loved Edith, made 
Edith love me. Then came the day when I, 
Flattering myself that all my doubts were fools 
Born of the fool this Age that doubts of all — 
Not I that day of Edith's love or mine — 
Had braced my purpose to declare myself: 
I stood upon the stairs of Paradise. 
The golden gates would open at a word. 
I spoke it — told her of my passion, seen 
And lost and found again, had got so far, 
Had caught her hand, her eyelids fell — I heard 
Wheels, and a noise of welcome at the doors — 
On a sudden after two Italian years 
Had set the blossom of her health again. 
The younger sister, Evelyn, entered — there, 
There was the face, and altogether she. 
The mother fell about the daughters neck, 
The sisters closed in one another's arms, 
Their people throng'd about them from the hall, 



THE SISTERS. 233 

And in the thick of question and reply 
I fled the house, driven by one angel face, 
And all the Furies. 

I was bound to her ; 
I could not free myself in honour — Bound 
Not by the sounded letter of the word, 
But counterpressures of the yielded hand 
That timorously and faintly echoed mine, 
Quick blushes, the sweet dwelling of her eyes 
Upon me when she thought I did not see — 
Were these not bonds ? nay, nay, but could I wed her 
Loving the other? do her that great wrong? 
Had I not dream'd I lovM her yestermorn? 
Had I not known where Love, at first a fear. 
Grew after marriage to full height and form? 
Yet after marriage, that mock-sister there — 
Brother-in-law — the fiery nearness of it — 
Unlawful and disloyal brotherhood — 
What end but darkness could ensue from this 
For all the three ? So Love and Honour jarr'd 
Tho' Love and Honour join'd to raise the full 
High-tide of doubt that sway'd me up and down 
Advancing nor retreating. 

Edith wrote : 
" My mother bids me ask " (I did not tell you — 
A widow with less guile than many a child. 
God help the wrinkled children that are Christ's 
As well as the plump cheek — she wrought us harm. 
Poor soul, not knowing) "are you ill?" (so ran 



234 THE SISTERS. 

The letter) *' you have not been here of late. 
You will not find me here. At last I go 
On that long-promised visit to the North. 
I told your wayside story to my mother 
And Evelyn. She remembers you. Farewell. 
Pray come and see my mother. Almost blind 
With ever-growing cataract, yet she thinks 
She sees you when she hears. Again farewell." 

Cold words from one I had hoped to warm so 
far 
That I could stamp my image on her heart ! 
^'Pray come and see my mother, and farewell." 
Cold, but as welcome as free airs of heaven 
After a dungeon's closeness. Selfish, strange ! 
What dwarfs are men ! my strangled vanity 
Utter'd a stifled cry — to have vext myself 
And all in vain for her — cold heart or none — 
No bride for me. Yet so my path was clear 
To win the sister. 

Whom I woo'd and won. 

For Evelyn knew not of my former suit, 
Because the simple mother worked upon 
By Edith pray'd me not to whisper of it. 
And Edith would be bridesmaid on the day. 

But on that day, not being all at ease, 
I from the altar glancing back upon her. 
Before the first " I will " was utter'd, saw 
The bridesmaid pale, statuelike, passionless — 
'•No harm, no harm" I turned again, and placed 
My ring upon the finger of my bride. 



THE SISTERS. 235 

So, when we parted, Edith spoke no word, 
She wept no tear, but round my Evelyn clung 
In utter silence for so long, I thought 
*' What, will she never set her sister free?" 

We left her, happy each in each, and then, 
As tho' the happiness of each in each 
Were not enough, must fain have torrents, lakes, 
Hills, the great things of Nature and the fair, 
To lift us as it were from commonplace. 
And help us to our joy. Better have sent 
Our Edith thro' the glories of the earth, 
To change with her horizon, if true Love 
Were not his own imperial all-in-all. 

Far off we went. My God, I would not live 
Save that I think this gross hard-seeming world 
Is our misshaping vision of the Powers 
Behind the world, that make our griefs our gains. 

For on the dark night of our marriage-day 
The great Tragedian, that had quenched herself 
In that assumption of the bridesmaid — she 
That loved me — our true Edith — her brain broke 
With over-acting, till she rose and fled 
Beneath a pitiless rush of Autumn rain 
To the deaf church — to be let in — to pray 
Before that altar — so I think ; and there 
They found her beating the hard Protestant doors. 
She died and she was buried ere we knew. 



236 THE SISTERS, 

I learnt it first. I had to speak. At once 
The bright quick smile of Evelyn, that had sunn'd 
The morning of our marriage, past away : 
And on our home-return the daily want 
Of Edith in the house, the garden, still 
Haunted us like her ghost ; and by and by, 
Either from that necessity for talk 
Which lives with blindness, or plain innocence 
Of nature, or desire that her lost child 
Should earn from both the praise of heroism, 
The mother broke her promise to the dead, 
And told the living daughter with what love 
Edith had welcomed my brief wooing of her, 
And all her sweet self-sacrifice and death. 

Henceforth that mystic bond betwixt the twins — 
Did I not tell you they were twins ? — prevail'd 
So far that no caress could win my wife 
Back to that passionate answer of full heart 
I had from her at first. Not that her love, 
Tho' scarce as great as Edith's power of love, 
Had lessened, but the mother's garrulous wail 
For ever woke the unhappy Past again, 
Till that dead bridesmaid, meant to be my bride, 
Put forth cold hands between us, and I fear'd 
The very fountains of her life were chilPd ; 
So took her thence, and brought her here, and here 
She bore a child, whom reverently we calFd 
Edith ; and in the second year was born 
A second — this I named from her own self, 
Evelyn ; then two weeks — no more — she joined, 



THE SISTERS, IZl 

In and beyond the grave, that one she loved. 

Now in this quiet of declining life, 
Thro' dreams by night and trances of the day, 
The sisters glide about me hand in hand. 
Both beautiful alike, nor can I tell 
One from the other, no, nor care to tell 
One from the other, only know they come, 
They smile upon me, till, remembering all 
The love they both have borne me, and the love 
I bore them both — divided as I am 
From either by the stillness of the grave — 
I know not which of these I love the best. 

But you love Edith ; and her own true eyes 
Are traitors to her ; our quick Evelyn — 
The merrier, prettier, wittier, as they talk. 
And not without good reason, my good son — 
Is yet untouched : and I that hold them both 
Dearest of all things — well, I am not sure — 
But if there lie a preference eitherway, 
And in the rich vocabulary of Love 
^'Most dearest" be a true superlative — 
I think /likewise love your Edith most. 



238 THE VILLAGE WIFE; 



THE VILLAGE WIFE; OR, THE ENTAILJ 



'OusE-KEEPER sent tha my lass, fur New Squire 

coom'd last night. 
Butter an' heggs — yis — yis. Til goa wi' tha back : 

all right ; 
Butter I warrants be prime, an' I warrants the heggs 

be as well, 
Hafe a pint o' milk runs out when ya breaks the 

shell. 

II. 

Sit thysen down fur a bit : hev a glass o' cowslip 
wine ! 

I liked the owd Squire an' 'is gells as thaw they was 
gells o' mine, 

Fur then we was all es one, the Squire an' 'is dar- 
ters an' me, 

Hall but Miss Annie, the heldest, I niver not took 
to she : 

But Nelly, the last of the cletch,- I liked 'er the fust 
on 'em all. 

Fur hoffens we talkt o' my darter es died o' the fever 
at fall : 

* See note to " Northern Cobbler." - A brood <^f . hirkci.s. 



OR, THE ENTAIL. 239 

An' I thowt Hwur the will o' the Lord, but Miss 
Annie she said it wur draaiins, 

Fur she hedn't naw coomfut in 'er, an' arn'd naw 
thanks fur 'er paains. 

Eh ! thebbe all wi' the Lord my childer, I han't got- 
ten none ! 

Sa new Squire's coom'd wi' 'is taail in 'is 'and, an' 
owd Squire's gone. 



III. 

Fur 'staate be i' taail, my lass : tha dosn' knaw 

what that be ? 
But I knaws the law, I does, for the lawyer ha towd 

it me. 
'' When theer's naw 'cad to a 'Ouse by the fault o' 

that ere maale — 
The gclls they counts fur nowt, and the next un he 

taakes the taail." 



IV. 

What be the next un like? can tha tell ony harm on 
'im lass ? — 

Naay sit down — naw 'urry — sa cowd ! — hev an- 
other glass ! 

Straange an' cowd fur the time ! we may happen a 
fall o' snaw — 

Not es I cares fur to hear ony harm, but I likes to 
knaw. 



240 THE VILLAGE WIFE ; 

An' I 'oaps es 'e beaint boooklarn'd : but 'e dosni 

not coom fro' the shere ; 
We'd anew o' that wi' the Squire, an' we haate^ 

boooklarnin' ere. 



Fur Squire wur a Varsity scholard, an' niver lookt 

arter the land — 
Whoats or turmuts or taates — 'e 'ed hallus a boook 

i' 'is 'and, 
Hallus aloan wi' 'is boooks, thaw nigh upo' seventy 

year. 
An' boooks, what's boooks? thou knaws thebbe 

neyther 'ere nor theer. 

VI. 

An' the gells, they hedn't naw taails, an' the lawyer 

he towd it me 
That 'is taail were soa tied up es he couldn't cut 

down a tree ! 
" Drat the trees," says I, to be sewer I haates 'em, 

my lass, 
Fur we puts the muck o' the land an' they sucks the 

muck fro' the grass. 

VII. 

An' Squire wur hallus a-smilin', an' gied to the 

tramps goin' by — 
An' all o' the wust i' the parish — wi' hofFens a drop 

in 'is eye. 



OR, THE ENTAIL, 241 

An' ivry darter o' Squire's hed her awn ridin-erse 

to 'ersen, 
An' they rampaged about wi' their grooms, an' was 

'untin' arter the men, 
An' hallus a-dallackt^ an' dizen'd out, an' a-buyin' 

new cloathes. 
While 'e sit like a graat glimmer-gowk ^ wi' 'is 

glasses athurt 'is noase, 
An' 'is noase sa grufted wi' snufF es it couldn't be 

scroob'd awaay, 
Fur atween 'is readin' an' writin' 'e snifft up a box 

in a daay. 
An' 'e niver runn'd arter the fox, nor arter the birds 

wi' 'is gun, 
An' 'e niver not shot one 'are, but 'e leaved it to 

Charlie 'is son, 
An' 'e niver not fish'd 'is awn ponds, but Charlie 'e 

cotch'd the pike, 
For 'e warn't not burn to the land, an' 'e didn't take 

kind to it like ; 
But I ears es 'e'd gie fur a howry ^ owd book thutty 

pound an' moor. 
An' 'e'd wrote an owd book, his awn sen, sa I 

knaw'd es 'e'd coom to be poor ; 
An' 'e gied — I be fear'd fur to tell tha 'ow much — 

fur an owd scratted stoan, 
An' 'e digg'd up a loomp i' the land an' 'e got a 

brown pot an' a boan, 
An' 'e bowt owd money, es wouldn't goa, wi' good 

gowd o' the Queen, 

^ Overdrest in gay colours. 2 Owl. * Filthy. 



242 THE VILLAGE WIFE; 

An' 'e bowt little statutes all-naakt an' which was a 

shaame to be seen ; 
But 'e niver loookt ower a bill, nor 'e niver not seed 

to owt, 
An' 'e niver knawd nowt but boooks, an' boooks, 

as thou knaws, beant nowt. 



VIII. 

But owd Squire's laady es long es she lived she kep 

'em all clear, 
Thaw es long es she lived I niver hed none of 'er 

darters 'ere ; 
But arter she died we was all es one, the childer an' 

me, 
An' sarvints runn'd in an' out, an' ofFens we hed 'em 

to tea. 
Lawk ! 'ow I laugh'd when the lasses 'ud talk o' 

their Missis's waays, 
An' the Missisis talk'd o' the lasses. — I'll tell tha 

some o' these daays. 
Hoanly Miss Annie were saw stuck oop, like 'er 

mother afoor — 
'Er an' 'er blessed darter — they niver derken'd my 

door. 



IX. 

An' Squire 'e smiled an' 'e smiled till 'e'd gotten a 
fright at last, 



OR, THE ENTAIL, 243 

An' 'e calls fur 'is son, fur the 'turney's letters they 

foller'd sa fast ; 
But Squire wur afear'd o' 'is son, an' 'e says to 'im, 

meek as a mouse, 
"Lad, thou mun cut off thy taail, or the gells 'ull 

goa to the 'Ouse, 
Fur I finds es I be that i' debt, es I 'oaps es thou'll 

'elp me a bit, 
An' if thou'll 'gree to cut off thy taail I may saave 

mysen yit." 

X. 

But Charlie 'e sets back 'is ears, an' 'e swears, an' 

'e says to 'im '^Noa. 
I've gotten the 'staate by the taail an' be dang'd if I 

iver let goa ! 
Coom ! coom ! feyther," 'e says, ** why shouldn't thy 

boooks be sowd? 
I hears es soom o' thy boooks mebbe worth their 

weight i' gowd." 

XI. 

Heaps an' heaps o' boooks, I ha' see'd 'em, be- 

long'd to the Squire, 
But the lasses 'ed teard out leaves i' the middle to 

kindle the fire ; 
Sa moast on 'is owd big boooks fetch'd nigh to 

nowt at the saale, 
And Squire were at Charlie agean to git 'im to cut 

off 'is taail. 



I 



244 THE VILLAGE WIFE; 

XII. 

Ya wouldn't find Charlie's likes — 'e were that ou1 
dacious at 'oam, 

Not thaw ya wen-t fur to raake out Hell wi' a small- 
tooth coamb — 

Droonk wi' the Quoloty's wine, an' droonk wi' the 
farmer's aale. 

Mad wi' the lasses an' all — an' 'e wouldn't cut off 
the taail. 

XIII. 

Thou's coom'd oop by the beck ; and a thurn be a- 

grawin' theer, 
I niver ha seed it sa white wi' the Maay es I see'd 

it to-year — 
Theerabouts Charlie joompt — and it gied me a 

scare tother night, 
Fur I thowt it wur Charlie's ghoast i' the derk, fur 

it loookt sa white. 
** Billy," says 'e, *' hev a joomp! " — thaw the banks 

o' the beck be sa high, 
Fur he ca'd 'is 'erse Billy-rough-un, thaw niver a 

hair wur awry ; 
But Billy fell bakkuds o' Charlie, an' Charlie 'e brok 

'is neck, 
Sa theer wur a hend o' the taail, fur 'e lost 'is taail 

i' the beck. 

XIV. 

Sa 'is taail wur lost an' 'is boooks wur gone an' 'is 
boy wur dead, 



i^ OR, THE ENTAIL. 



245 



An' Squire 'e smiled an' 'e smiled, but 'e niver not 

lift oop 'is 'ead : 
Hallus a soft un Squire ! an' 'e smiled, fur 'e hedn't 

naw friend, 
Sa feyther an' son was buried togither, an' this wur 

the hend. 

XV. 

An' Parson as hesn't the call, nor the mooney, but 

hes the pride, 
'E reads of a sewer an' sartan 'oap o' the tother 

side ; 
But I beant that sewer es the Lord, howsiver they 

praay'd an' praay'd. 
Lets them inter 'eaven easy es leaves their debts to 

be paaid. 
Siver the mou'ds rattled down upo' poor owd Squire 

i' the wood, 
An' I cried along wi' the gells, fur they weant niver 

coom to naw good. 

XVI. 

Fur Molly the long un she walkt awaay wi' a hoffi- 

cer lad. 
An' nawbody 'eard on 'er sin, sa o' coorse she be 

gone to the bad ! 
An' Lucy wur laame o' one leg, sweet'arts she niver 

'ed none — 
Straange an' unheppen ^ Miss Lucy ! we naamed 

her ** Dot an' gaw one ! " 

^ Ungainly, awkward. 



246 THE VILLAGE WIFE; 

An' Hetty wur weak T the hattics, wi'out ony harm 

r the legs, 
An' the fever 'ed baaked Jinny's 'ead as bald as one 

o' them heggs, 
An' Nelly wur up fro' the craadle as big i' the mouth 

as a cow, 
An' saw she mun hammergrate,^ lass, or she weant 

git a maate ony how ! 
An' es for Miss Annie es call'd me afoor my awn 

foalks to my faace 
" A hignorant village wife as 'ud hev to be larn'd 

her awn plaace," 
Hes fur Miss Hannie the heldest hes now be 

a-grawin' sa howd, 
I knaws that mooch o' shea, es it beant not fit to be 

towd ! 

XVII. 

Sa I didn't not taake it kindly ov owd Miss Annie 

to saay 
Es I should be talkin agean 'em, es soon es they 

went awaay. 
Fur, lawks ! 'ow I cried when they went, an' our 

Nelly she gied me 'er 'and. 
Fur I'd ha done owt for the Squire an' 'is gells es 

belong'd to the land ; 
Boooks, es I said afoor, thebbe neyther 'ere nor 

theer ! 
But I sarved 'em wi' butter an' heggs fur huppuds o' 

twenty year. 

1 Emigrate. 



OR, THE ENTAIL, 247 

XVIII. 

An' they hallus paaid what I hax'd, sa I hallus deaPd 

wP the Hall, 
An' they knaw'd what butter wur, an' they knaw'd 

what a hegg wur an' all ; 
Hugger-mugger they lived, but they wasn't that easy 

to please. 
Till I gied 'em Hinjian curn, an' they laaid big heggs 

es tha seeas ; 
An' I niver puts saame^ i' my butter, they does it at 

Willis's farm, 
Taaste another drop o' the wine — tweant do tha 

naw harm. 

XIX. 

Sa new Squire's coom'd wi' 'is taail in 'is 'and, an' 

owd Squire's gone ; 
I heard 'im a roomlin' by, but arter my nightcap wur 

on ; 
Sa I han't clapt eyes on 'im yit, fur he coom'd last 

night sa laate — 
Pluksh ! ! ! 2 the hens i' the peas ! why didn't tha 

hesp the gaate ? 

1 Lard. 

2 A cry accompanied by a clapping of hands to scare trespassing 
fowl. 



248 IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 



IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 



EMMIE. 



Our doctor had calPd in another, I never had seeE 

him before, 
But he sent a chill to my heart when I saw him 

come in at the door, 
Fresh from the surgery-schools of France and of 

other lands — 
Harsh red hair, big voice, big chest, big merciless 

hands ! 
Wonderful cures he had done, O yes, but they said 

too of him 
He was happier using the knife than in trying to 

save the limb. 
And that I can well believe, for he look'd so coarse 

and so red, 
I could think he was one of those who would break 

their jests on the dead, 
And mangle the living dog that had loved him and 

fawn'd at his knee — 
Drench'd with the hellish oorali — that ever suc^ 

thino^s should be ! 



IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, 249 

II. 

Here was a boy — I am sure that some of our 

children would die 
But for the voice of Love, and the smile, and the 

comforting eye — 
Here was a boy in the ward, every bone seem'd out 

of its place — 
Caught in a mill and crushed — it was all but a 

hopeless case : 
And he handled him gently enough ; but his voice 

and his face were not kind, 
And it was but a hopeless case, he had seen it and 

made up his mind, 
And he said to me roughly '-' The lad will need little 

more of your care." 
** All the more need," I told him, " to seek the Lord 

Jesus in prayer ; 
They are all his children here, and I pray for them 

all as my own : " 
But he turn'd to me, **Ay, good woman, can 

prayer set a broken bone ? " 
Then he mutterM half to himself, but I know that I 

heard him say 
" All very well — but the good Lord Jesus has had 

his day." 



III. 

Had? has it come? It has only dawn'd. It will 
come by and by. 



250 IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 

O how could I serve in the wards if the hope of the 

world were a lie ? 
How could I bear with the sights and the loathsome 

smells of disease 
But that He said " Ye do it to me, when ye do it to 

these"? 



IV. 

So he went. And we past to this ward where the 

younger children are laid : 
Here is the cot of our orphan, our darling, our meek"* 

little maid ; 
Empty you see just now ! We have lost her who 

loved her so much — 
Patient of pain tho' as quick as a sensitive plant to 

the touch ; 
Hers was the prettiest prattle, it often moved me to 

tears, 
Hers was the gratefullest heart I have found in a 

child of her years — 
Nay you remember our Emmie ; you used to send 

her the flowers ; 
How she would smile at 'em, play with 'em, talk to 

'em hours after hours ! 
They that can wander at will where the works of the 

Lord are reveal'd 
Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out 

of the field ; 
Flowers tP these "spirits in prison" are all they can 

know of the spring. 



IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, 251 

They freshen and sweeten the wards like the waft 

of an AngePs wing ; 
And she lay with a flower in one hand and her thin 

hands crost on her breast — 
Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire, and we 

thought her at rest, 
Quietly sleeping — so quiet, our doctor said " Poor 

little dear, 
Nurse, I must do it to-morrow ; she'll never life thro' 

it, I fear." 



I walked with our kindly old doctor as far as the 

head of the stair. 
Then I returned to the ward ; the child didn't see I 

was there. 

VI. 

Never since I was nurse, had I been so grieved and 

so vext ! 
Emmie had heard him. Softly she calPd from her 

cot to the next, 
** He says I shall never live thro' it, O Annie, what 

shall I do?" 
Annie consider'd. ** If I," said the wise little Annie, 

*' was you, 
I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me, for, 

Emmie, you see, 
It's all in the picture there : * Little children should 

come to me.' " 



252 IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 

(Meaning the print that you gave us, I find that it 

always can please 
Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with children] 

about his knees.) 
** Yes, and I will," said Emmie, *'but then if I call] 

to the Lord, 
How should he know that it's me? such a lot of j 

beds in the ward ! " 
That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she considered 

and said : 
** Emmie, you put out your arms, and you leave 'em 

outside on the bed — 
The Lord has so much to see to ! but, Emmie, you 

tell it him plain, 
It's the little girl with her arms lying out on the 

counterpane." 



VII. 

I had sat three nights by the child — I could not 

watch her for four — 
My brain had begun to reel — I felt I could do it no 

more. 
That was my sleeping-night, but I thought that it 

never would pass. 
There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail 

on the glass. 
And there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tost 

about. 
The motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and 

the darkness without ; 



IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAE 25? 

My sleep was broken besides with dreAms of the 

dreadful knife 
And fears for our delicate Emmie who scarce would 

escape with her life ; 
Then in the gray of the morning it seem'd she 

stood by me and smiled, 
And the doctor came at his hour, and we went to 

see to the child. 

VIII. 

He had brought his ghastly tools : we believed her 

asleep again — 
Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying out on the 

counterpane ; 
Say that His day is done ! Ah why should we care 

what they say? 
The Lord of the children had heard her, and Emmie 

had past away. 



254 DEDICATORY POEM. 



DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS 
ALICE. 

Dead Princess, living Power, if that, which lived 
True life, live on — and if the fatal kiss, 
Born of true life and love, divorce thee not 
From earthly love and life — if what we call 
The spirit flash not all at once from out 
This shadow into Substance — then perhaps 
The mellow'd murmur of the people's praise 
From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm, 
Where Love and Longing dress thy deeds in light. 
Ascends to thee ; and this March morn that sees 
Thy Soldier-brother's bridal orange-bloom 
Break thro' the yews and cypress of thy grave, 
And thine Imperial mother smile again, 
May send one ray to thee ! and who can tell — 
Thou — England's England-loving daughter — thou 
Dying so English thou wouldst have her flag 
Borne on thy coffin — where is he can swear 
But that some broken gleam from our poor earth 
May touch thee, while remembering thee, I lay 
At thy pale feet this ballad of the deeds 
Of England, and her banner in the East? 



THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW. 255 



I 



THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW. 



Banner of England, not for a season, O banner of 
Britain, hast thou 

Floated in conquering battle or flapt to the battle- 
cry ! 

Never with mightier glory than when we had rearM 
thee on high 

Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of 
Lucknow — 

Shot thro' the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised 
thee anew. 

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of Eng- 
land blew. 

II. 

Frail were the works that defended the hold that we 

held with our lives — 
Women and children among us, God help them, our 

children and wives ! 
Hold it we might — and for fifteen days or for twenty 

at most. 
" Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die 

at his post ! " 



256 THE DEFENCE OF LUCK NOW, 

Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence the 

best of the brave : 
Cold were his brows when we kissM him — we laid 

him that night in his grave. 
" Every man die at his post ! '^ and there haiPd on 

our houses and halls 
Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their 

cannon-balls, 
Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our 

slight barricade, 
Death while we stood with the musket, and death 

while we stoopt to the spade, 
Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, 

for often there fell. 
Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro' it, their 

shot and their shell, 
Death — for their spies were among us, their marks- 
men were told of our best, 
So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that 

could think for the rest ; 
Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets 

would rain at our feet — 
Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that 

girdled us round — 
Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth 

of a street. 
Death from the heights of the mosque and the 

palace, and death in the ground ! 
Mine? yes, a mine! Countermine! down, down! 

and creep thro' the hole ! 






THE DEFENCE OF LUCK NOW, 257 

Keep the revolver in hand ! you can hear him — the 

murderous mole ! 
Quiet, ah ! quiet — wait till the point of the pickaxe 

be thro' ! 
Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again 

than before — 
Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer 

is no more ; 
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of 

England blew ! 

III. 
Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it 

chanced on a day 
Soon as the blast of that underground thunderclap 

echo'd away. 
Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur like so many 

fiends in their hell — 
Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell 

upon yell — 
Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell. 
What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. 

Guard the Redan ! 
Storm at the Water-gate ! storm at the Bailey-gate ! 

storm, and it ran 
Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every 

side 
Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drown'd 

by the tide — 
So many thousands that if they be bold enough, who 

shall escape? 



258 THE DEFENCE OF LUCK NOW, 

Kill or be kilPd, live or die, they shall know we are 
soldiers and men ! 

Ready! take aim at their leaders — their masses are 
gapp'd with our grape — 

Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave 
flinging forward again, 

Flying and foiPd at the last by the handful they 
could not subdue ; 

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of Eng- 
land blew. 



IV. 

Handful of men as we were, we were English in 

heart and in limb, 
Strong with the strength of the race to command, to 

obey, to endure, 
Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung 

but on him ; 
Still — could we watch at all points? we were every 

day fewer and fewer. 
There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper 

that past : 
" Children and wives — if the tigers leap into the fold 

unawares — 
Every man die at his post — and the foe may outlive 

us at last — 
Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to 

fall into theirs ! " 
Roar upon roar in a moment two mines by the enemy 

sprung 



I THE DEFENCE OF LUCK NOW. 259 

Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor 
palisades. 

Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your 
hand be as true ! 

Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your 
flank fusillades — 

Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to 
which they had clung, 

Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive 
them with hand-grenades : 

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of Eng- 
land blew. 



V. 

Then on another wild morning another wild earth- 
quake out-tore 

Clean from our lines of defence ten or twelve good 
paces or more. 

Rifleman, high on the roof, hidden there from the 
light of the sun — 

One has leapt up on the breach, crying out : " Fol- 
low me, follow me ! " — 

Mark him — he falls ! then another, and him too, 
and down goes he. 

Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but 
the traitors had won? 

Boardings and rafters and doors — an embrasure! 
make way for the gun ! 

Now double-charge it with grape ! It is charged and 
we fire, and they run. 



260 THE DEFENCE OF LUCK NOW. 

Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark fac^ 

have his due ! 
Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with u^ 

faithful and few, 
Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, 

and smote them, and slew. 
That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India 

blew. 



Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. 

We can fight ! 
But to be soldier all day and be sentinel all thro' the 

night — 
Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying 

alarms. 
Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings 

and soundings to arms, 
Ever the labour of fifty that had to be done by five, 
Ever the marvel among us that one should be left 

alive, 
Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loop- 
holes around, 
Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid 

in the ground, 
Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract 

skies, 
Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of 

flies, 
Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an 

English field, 



THE DEFENCE OF LUCK NOW. 261 

Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would 
not be heaPd, 

Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful-pitiless 
knife, — 

Torture and trouble in vain, — for it never could 
save us a life. 

Valour of delicate women who tended the hospital 
bed. 

Horror of women in travail among the dying and 
dead, 

Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment 
for grief, 

Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of re- 
lief, 

Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butchered for all that 
we knew — 

Then day and night, day and night, coming down 
on the still-shatterM walls 

Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannon- 
balls— 

But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of Eng- 
land blew. 

VII. 

Hark cannonade, fusillade ! is it true what was told 

by the scout, 
Outram and Havelock breaking their way through 

the fell mutineers? 
Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our 

ears ! 
All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout, 



262 THE DEFENCE OF LVCKNOW, 



I 



Havelock's glorious Highlanders answer with con- 
quering cheers, 

Sick from the hospital echo them, women and chil- 
dren come out, 

Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock's ■ 
good fusileers, 

Kissing the war-harden'd hand of the Highlander 
wet with their tears ! 

Dance to the pibroch ! — saved! we are saved ! — is 
it you? is it you? 

Saved by the valour of Havelock, saved by the bless- 
ing of Heaven ! 

" Hold it for fifteen days ! " we have held it for 
eighty-seven ! 

And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of 
England blew. 



SZR JOHN OLDCASTLE, 263 



SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, LORD COBHAM. 

(in wales.) 

My friend should meet me somewhere hereabout 
To take me to that hiding in the hills. 

I have broke their cage, no gilded one, I trow — 
I read no more the prisoner's mute wail 
Scribbled or carved upon the pitiless stone ; 
I find hard rocks, hard life, hard cheer, or none, 
For I am emptier than a friar's brains ; 
But God is with me in this wilderness, 
These wet black passes and foam-churning chasms — 
And God's free air, and hope of better things. 

I would I knew their speech ; not now to glean, 
Not now — I hope to do it — some scatter'd ears, 
Some ears for Christ in this wild field of Wales — 
But, bread, merely for bread. This tongue that 

wagg'd 
They said with such heretical arrogance 
Against the proud archbishop Arundel — 
So much God's cause was fluent in it — is here 
But as a Latin Bible to the crowd ; 
" Bara ! " — what use ? The Shepherd, when I speak, 



264 SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, 

Vailing a sudden eyelid with his hard 
*' Dim Saesneg " passes, wroth at things of old — 
No fault of mine. Had he God's word in Welsh 
He might be kindlier : happily come the day ! 

Not least art thou, thou little Bethlehem 
In Judah, for in thee the Lord was born ; 
Nor thou in Britain, little Lutterworth, 
Least, for in thee the word was born again. 

Heaven-sweet Evangel, ever-living word, 
Who whilome spakest to the South in Greek 
About the soft Mediterranean shores, 
And then in Latin to the Latin crowd, 
As good need was — thou hast come to talk our isle. 
Hereafter thou, fulfilling Pentecost, 
Must learn to use the tongues of all the world. 
Yet art thou thine own witness that thou bringest 
Not peace, a sword, a fire. 

What did he say, 
My frighted Wiclif-preacher whom I crost 
In flying hither? that one night a crowd 
Thronged the waste field about the city gates : 
The king was on them suddenly with a host. 
Why there ? they came to hear their preacher. Then 
Some cried on Cobham, on the good Lord Cobham ; 
Ay, for they love me ! but the king — nor voice 
Nor finger raised against him — took and hang'd. 
Took, hang'd and burnt — how many — thirty- 
nine — 
Caird it rebellion — hang'd, poor friends, as rebels 



LORD COBHAM. 265 

And burnM alive as heretics ! for your Priest 
Labels — to take the king along with him — 
All heresy, treason : but to call men traitors 
May make men traitors. 

Rose of Lancaster, 
Red in thy birth, redder with household war, 
Now reddest with the blood of holy men, 
Redder to be, red rose of Lancaster — 
If somewhere in the North, as Rumour sang 
Fluttering the hawks of this crown-lusting line — 
By firth and loch thy silver sister grow,^ 
That were my rose, there my allegiance due. 
Self-starved, they say — nay, murdered, doubtless 

dead. 
So to this king I cleaved : my friend was he. 
Once my fast friend : I would have given my life 
To help his own from scathe, a thousand lives 
To save his soul. He might have come to learn 
Our Wiclifs learning : but the worldly Priests 
Who fear the king's hard common-sense should find 
What rotten piles uphold their mason-work. 
Urge him to foreign war. O had he will'd 
I might have stricken a lusty stroke for him, 
But he would not ; far liever led my friend 
Back to the pure and universal church, 
But he would not : whether that heirless flaw 
In his throne's title make him feel so frail, 
He leans on Antichrist ; or that his mind, 
So quick, so capable in soldiership, 
In matters of the faith, alas the while ! 

1 Richard II. 



266 SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, 

More worth than all the kingdoms of this world, 
Runs in the rut, a coward to the Priest. 






Burnt — good Sir Roger Acton, my dear friend ! 
Burnt too, my faithful preacher, Beverley ! 
Lord give thou power to thy two witnesses ! 
Lest the false faith make merry over them ! 
Two — nay but thirty-nine have risen and stand, 
Dark with the smoke of human sacrifice. 
Before thy light, and cry continually — 
Cry — against whom? 

Him, who should bear the sword 
Of Justice — what ! the kingly, kindly boy ; 
Who took the world so easily heretofore, 
My boon companion, tavern-fellow — him 
Who gibed and japed — in many a merry tale 
That shook our sides — at Pardoners, Summoners, 
Friars, absolution-sellers, monkeries 
And nunneries, when the wild hour and the wine 
Had set the wits aflame. 

Harry of Monmouth, 
Or Amurath of the East ? 

Better to sink 
Thy fleurs-de-lys in slime again, and fling 
Thy royalty back into the riotous fits 
Of wine and harlotry — thy shame, and mine. 
Thy comrade — than to persecute the Lord, 
And play the Saul that never will be Paul. 

Burnt, burnt ! and while this mitred Arundel 
Dooms our unlicensed preacher to the flame. 



LORD COB HAM, 267 

The mitre-sanction 'd harlot draws his clerks 
Into the suburb — their hard celibacy, 
Sworn to be veriest ice of pureness, molten 
Into adulterous living, or such crimes 
As holy Paul — a shame to speak of them — 
Among the heathen — 

Sanctuary granted 
To bandit, thief, assassin — yea to him 
Who hacks his mother's throat — denied to him, 
Who finds the Saviour in his mother tongue. 
The Gospel, the Priest's pearl, flung down to 

swine — 
The swine, lay-men, lay-women, who will come, 
God willing, to outlearn the filthy friar. 
Ah rather, Lord, than that thy Gospel, meant 
To course and range thro' all the world, should 

be 
Tether'd to these dead pillars of the Church — 
Rather than so, if thou wilt have it so. 
Burst vein, snap sinew, and crack heart, and life 
Pass in the fire of Babylon ! but how long, 
O Lord, how long ! 

My friend should meet me here. 
Here is the copse, the fountain and — a Cross ! 
To thee, dead wood, I bow not head nor knees. 
Rather to thee, green boscage, work of God, 
Black holly, and white-flower'd wayfaring-tree ! 
Rather to thee, thou living water, drawn 
By this good Wiclif mountain down from heaven, 
And speaking clearly in thy native tongue — 
No Latin — He that thirsteth, come and drink! 



268 SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, 



Eh ! how I anger'd Arundel asking me 
To worship Holy Cross ! I spread mine arms, 
God's work, I said, a cross of flesh and blood 
And holier. That was heresy. (My good friend 
By this time should be with me.) " Images? " 
*' Bury them as God's truer images 
Are daily buried."" " Heresy. — Penance ? " '' Fast, 
Hairshirt and scourge — nay, let a man repent, 
Do penance in his heart, God hears him." "Her- 
esy — 
Not shriven, not saved ? " " What profits an ill Priesi 
Between me and my God ? I would not spurn 
Good counsel of good friends, but shrive myself 
No, not to an Apostle." " Heresy." 
(My friend is long in coming.) " Pilgrimages?" 
" Drink, bagpipes, revelling, deviPs-dances, vice. 
The poor man's money gone to fat the friar. 
Who reads of begging saints in Scripture ? " — 

"Heresy" — 
(Hath he been here — not found me — gone again? 
Have I mislearnt our place of meeting?) " Bread — 
Bread left after the blessing?" how they stared. 
That was their main test-question — glared at me! 
" He veiPd Himself in flesh, and now He veils 
His flesh in bread, body and bread together." 
Then rose the howl of all the cassock'd wolves, 
"No bread, no bread. God's body!" Archbishop, 

Bishop, 
Priors, Canons, Friars, bellringers, Parish-clerks — 
" No bread, no bread ! " — " Authority of the Church, 
Power of the keys ! " — Then I, God help me, I 






LORD COB HAM. 269 

So mock'd, so spurnM, so baited two whole days — 

I lost myself and fell from evenness, 

And raiPd at all the Popes, that ever since 

Sylvester shed the venom of world-wealth 

Into the church, had only prov'n themselves 

Poisoners, murderers. Well — God pardon all — 

Me, them, and all the world — yea, that proud 

Priest, 
That mock-meek mouth of utter Antichrist, 
That traitor to King Richard and the truth. 
Who rose and doomM me to the fire. 

Amen ! 
Nay, I can burn, so that the Lord of life 
Be by me in my death. 

Those three ! the fourth 
Was like the Son of God ! Not burnt were they. 
On them the smell of burning had not past. 
That was a miracle to convert the king. 
These Pharisees, this Caiaphas-Arundel 
What miracle could turn? He here again, 
He thwarting their traditions of Himself, 
He would be found a heretic to Himself, 
And doom'd to burn alive. 

So, caught, I burn. 
Burn? heathen men have borne as much as this. 
For freedom, or the sake of those they loved, 
Or some less cause, some cause far less than mine ; 
For every other cause is less than mine. 
The moth will singe her wings, and singed return. 
Her love of light quenching her fear of pain — 
How now, my soul, we do not heed the fire? 



270 SIJ^ JOHN OLDCASTLE. 

Faint-hearted ? tut ! — faint-stomach'd ! faint as 

am, 
God willing, I will burn for Him. 

Who comes? 
A thousand marks are set upon my head. 
Friend? — foe perhaps — a tussle for it then! 
Nay, but my friend. Thou art so well disguised, 
I knew thee not. Hast tlfou brought bread with 

thee? 
I have not broken bread for fifty hours. 
None? I am damn'd already by the Priest 
For holding there was bread where bread was 

none — 
No bread. My friends await me yonder? Yes. 
Lead on then. ^ the mountain? Is it far? 
Not far. Climb first and reach me down thy hand. 
I am not like to die for lack of bread, 
For I must live to testify by fire.i 

1 He was burnt on Christmas Day, 1417. 



COLUMBUS. zn 



COLUMBUS. 

Chains, my good lord : in your raised brows I read 
Some wonder at our chamber ornaments. 
We brought this iron from our isles of gold. 

Does the king know you deign to visit him 
Whom once he rose from otf his throne to greet 
Before his people, like his brother king? 
I saw your face that morning in the crowd. 

At Barcelona — tho' you were not then 
So bearded. Yes. The city deck'd herself 
To meet me, roar'd my name ; the king, the queen 
Bad me be seated, speak, and tell them all 
The story of my voyage, and while I spoke 
The crowd's roar fell as at the '* Peace, be still ! " 
And when I ceased to speak, the king, the queen, 
Sank from their thrones, and melted into tears. 
And knelt, and lifted hand and heart and voice 
In praise to God who led me thro' the waste. 
And then the great " Laudamus '' rose to heaven. 

Chains for the Admiral of the Ocean ! chains 
For him who gave a new heaven, a new earth, 
As holy John had prophesied of me, 



272 COLUMBUS. 

Gave glory and more empire to the kings 

Of Spain than all their battles ! chains for him 

Who pushM his prows into the setting sun, 

And made West East, and saiPd the Dragon's 

mouth, 
And came upon the Mountain of the World, 
And saw the rivers roll from Paradise ! 

Chains ! we are Admirals of the Ocean, we, 
We and our sons for ever. Ferdinand 
Hath signed it and our Holy Catholic queen — 
Of the Ocean — of the Indies — Admirals we — 
Our title, which we never mean to yield. 
Our guerdon not alone for what we did, 
But our amends for all we might have done — 
The vast occasion of our stronger life — 
Eighteen long years of waste, seven in your Spain, 
Lost, showing courts and kings a truth the babe 
Will suck in with his milk hereafter — earth 
A sphere. 

WerejK^^ at Salamanca? No. 
We fronted there the learning of all Spain, 
All their cosmogonies, their astronomies : 
Guess-work they guess'd it, but the golden guess 
Is morning-star to the full round of truth. 
No guess-work ! I was certain of my goal ; 
Some thought it heresy, but that would not hold. 
King David calPd the heavens a hide, a tent 
Spread over earth, and so this earth was flat : 
Some cited old Lactantius : could it be 



COLUMBUS. 273 

That trees grew downward, rain fell upward, men 

WalkM like the fly on ceilings ? and besides, 

The great Augustine wrote that none could breathe 

Within the zone of heat ; so might there be 

Two Adams, two mankinds, and that was clean 

Against God's word : thus was I beaten back, 

And chiefly to my sorrow by the Church, 

And thought to turn my face from Spain, appeal 

Once more to France or England ; but our Queen 

RecalPd me, for at last their Highnesses 

Were half-assured this earth might be a sphere. 

All glory to the all-blessed Trinity, 
All glory to the mother of our Lord, 
And Holy Church, from whom I never swerved 
Not even by one hair's-breadth of heresy, 
I have accomplished what I came to do. 

Not yet — not all — last night a dream — I sail'd 
On my first voyage, harassed by the frights 
Of my first crew, their curses and their groans. 
The great flame-banner borne by Tenerifife, 
The compass, like an old friend false at last 
In our most need, appalPd them, and the wind 
Still westward, and the weedy seas — at length 
The landbird, and the branch with berries on it, 
The carven staff — and last the light, the light 
On Guanahani ! but I changed the name ; 
San Salvador I calPd it ; and the light 
Grew as I gazed, and brought out a broad sky 
Of dawning over — not those alien palms, 



274 COLUMBUS, 



The marvel of that fair new nature — not 

That Indian isle, but our most ancient East 

Moriah with Jerusalem ; and I saw 

The glory of the Lord flash up, and beat 

Thro' all the homely town from jasper, sapphire, 

Chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius. 

Chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, 

Jacynth, and amethyst — and those twelve gates. 

Pearl — and I woke, and thought — death — I shall 

die — 
I am written in the Lamb's own Book of Life 
To walk within the glory of the Lord 
Sunless and moonless, utter light — but no ! 
The Lord had sent this bright, strange dream to me 
To mind me of the secret vow I made 
When Spain was waging war against the Moor — 
I strove myself with Spain against the Moor. 
There came two voices from the Sepulchre, 
Two friars crying that if Spain should oust 
The Moslem from her limit, he, the fierce 
Soldan of Egypt, would break down and raze 
The blessed tomb of Christ ; whereon I vow'd 
That, if our Princes harken'd to my prayer. 
Whatever wealth I brought from that new world 
Should, in this old, be consecrate to lead 
A new crusade against the Saracen, 
And free the Holy Sepulchre from thrall. 

Gold? I had brought your Princes gold enough 
If left alone ! Being but a Genovese, 
I am handled worse than had I been a Moor, 






COLUMBUS. 275 

And breach'd the belting wall of Cambalu, 

And given the Great Khan's palaces to the Moor, 

Or clutch'd the sacred crown of Prester John, 

And cast it to the Moor : but had I brought 

From Solomon's now-recover'd Ophir all 

The gold that Solomon's navies carried home, 

Would that have gilded me f Blue blood of Spain, 

Tho' quartering your own royal arms of Spain, 

I have not : blue blood and black blood of Spain, 

The noble and the convict of Castile, 

HowPd me from Hispaniola ; for you know 

The flies at home, that ever swarm about 

And cloud the highest heads, and murmur down 

Truth in the distance — these outbuzz'd me so 

That even our prudent king, our righteous queen — 

I pray'd them being so calumniated 

They would commission one of weight and worth 

To judge between my slander'd self and me — 

Fonseca my main enemy at their court, 

They sent me out his tool, Bovadiila, one 

As ignorant and impolitic as a beast — 

Blockish irreverence, brainless greed — who sack'd 

My dwelling, seized upon my papers, loosed 

My captives, feed the rebels of the crown, 

Sold the crown-farms for all but nothing, gave 

All but free leave for all to work the mines. 

Drove me and my good brothers home in chains, 

And gathering ruthless gold — a single piece 

Weighed nigh four thousand Castillanos — so 

They tell me — weigh'd him down into the abysm — 

The hurricane of the latitude on him fell. 



276 COLUMBUS. 

The seas of our discovering over-roll 

Him and his gold ; the frailer caravel, 

With what was mine, came happily to the shore. 

There was a glimmering of God's hand. 

And God 
Hath more than glimmered on me. O my lord, 
I swear to you I heard his voice between 
The thunders in the black Veragua nights, 
" O soul of little faith, slow to believe ! 
Have I not been about thee from thy birth? 
Given thee the keys of the great Ocean-sea? 
Set thee in light till time shall be no more? 
Is it I who have deceived thee or the world ? 
Endure ! thou hast done so well for men, that men 
Cry out against thee : was it otherwise 
With mine own Son ? " 

And more than once in days 
Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope 
Sank all but out of sight, I heard his voice, 
" Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand. 
Fear not." And I shall hear his voice again — 
I know that he has led me all my life, 
I am not yet too old to work his will — 
His voice again. 

Still for all that, my lord, 
I lying here bedridden and alone, 
Cast off, put by, scouted by court and king — 
The first discoverer starves — his followers, all 



COLUMBUS. 277 

Flower into fortune — our world's way — and I, 
Without a roof that I can call mine own, 
With scarce a coin to buy a meal withal, 
And seeing what a door for scoundrel scum 
I opened to the West, thro' which the lust, 
Villany, violence, avarice, of your Spain 
Pour'd in on all those happy naked isles — 
Their kindly native princes slain or slaved, 
Their wives and children Spanish concubines, 
Their innocent hospitalities quench'd in blood, 
Some dead of hunger, some beneath the scourge. 
Some over-labour' d, some by their own hands, — 
Yea, the dear mothers, crazing Nature, kill 
Their babies at the breast for hate of Spain — 
Ah God, the harmless people whom we found 
In Hispaniola's island-Paradise ! 
Who took us for the very Gods from Heaven, 
And we have sent them very fiends from Hell ; 
And I myself, myself not blameless, I 
Could sometimes wish I had never led the way. 

Only the ghost of our great Catholic Queen 
Smiles on me, saying, *' Be thou comforted ! 
This creedless people will be brought to Christ 
And own the holy governance of Rome." 

But W'ho could dream that we, who bore the Cross 
Thither, were excommunicated there, 
For curbing crimes that scandalised the Cross, 
By him, the Catalonian Minorite, 
Rome's Vicar in our Indies? who believe 



278 COLUMBUS. 

These hard memorials of our truth to Spain 
Clung closer to us for a longer term 
Than any friend of ours at Court ? and yet 
Pardon — too harsh, unjust. I am rack'd with pains. 

You see that I have hung them by my bed, 
And I will have them buried in my grave. 

Sir, in that flight of ages which are God^s 
Own voice to justify the dead — perchance 
Spain once the most chivalric race on earth, 
Spain then the mightiest, wealthiest realm on earth, 
So made by me, may seek to unbury me, 
To lay me in some shrine of this old Spain, 
Or in that vaster Spain I leave to Spain. 
Then some one standing by my grave will say, 
** Behold the bones of Christopher Colon" — 
" Ay, but the chains, what do they mean — the 

chains ? " — 
I sorrow for that kindly child of Spain 
Who then will have to answer, *' These same chains 
Bound these same bones back thro' the Atlantic 

sea. 
Which he unchain'd for all the world to come." 

O Queen of Heaven who seest the souls in Hell 
And purgatory, I suffer all as much 
As they do — for the moment. Stay, my son 
Is here anon : my son will speak for me 
Ablier than I can in these spasms that grind 
Bone against bone. You will not. One last word. 



COLUMBUS, 279 

You move about the Court, I pray you tell 
King Ferdinand who plays with me, that one, 
Whose life has been no play with him and his 
Hidalgos — shipwrecks, famines, fevers, fights, 
Mutinies, treacheries — winkM at, and condoned — 
That I am loyal to him till the death, 
And ready — tho' our Holy Catholic Queen, 
Who fain had pledged her jewels on my first voyage, 
Whose hope was mine to spread the Catholic faith. 
Who wept with me when I returned in chains. 
Who sits beside the blessed Virgin now. 
To whom I send my prayer by night and day — 
She is gone — but you will tell the King, that I, 
Racked as I am with gout, and wrenchM with pains 
Gain'd in the service of His Highness, yet 
Am ready to sail forth on one last voyage. 
And readier, if the King would hear, to lead 
One last crusade against the Saracen, 
And save the Holy Sepulchre from thrall. 

Going? I am old and slighted : you have dared 
Somewhat perhaps in coming? my poor thanks ! 
I am but an alien and a Genovese. 



280 THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, 



1 



THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE. 

(founded on an IRISH LEGEND. A.D. 700.) 
I. 

1 WAS the chief of the race — he had stricken my 

father dead — 
But I gather^ my fellows together, I swore I would 

strike off his head. 
Each of them lookM like a king, and was noble in 

birth as in worth, 
And each of them boasted he sprang from the oldest 

race upon earth. 
Each was as brave in the fight as the bravest hero 

of song. 
And each of them liefer had died than have done 

one another a wrong. 
He lived on an isle in the ocean — we saiPd on a 

Friday morn — 
He that had slain my father the day before I was 

born. 

II. 

And we came to the isle in the ocean, and there on 

the shore was he. 
But a sudden blast blew us out and away thro' a 

boundless sea. 



THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, 281 

III. 

And we came to the Silent Isle that we never had 
touched at before, 

Where a silent ocean always broke on a silent 
shore, 

And the brooks glittered on in the light without 
sound, and the long waterfalls 

Pour'd in a thunderless plunge to the base of the 
mountain walls. 

And the poplar and cypress unshaken by storm 
flourished up beyond sight, 

And the pine shot aloft from the crag to an unbe- 
lievable height, 

And high in the heaven above it there flickered a 
songless lark, 

And the cock couldn't crow, and the bull couldn't 
low, and the dog couldn't bark. 

And round it we went, and thro' it, but never a mur- 
mur, a breath — 

It was all of it fair as life, it was all of it quiet as 
death, 

And we hated the beautiful Isle, for whenever we 
strove to speak 

Our voices were thinner and fainter than any flitter- 
mouse-shriek ; 

And the men that were mighty of tongue and could 
raise such a battle-cry 

That a hundred who heard it would rush on a thou- 
sand lances and die — 

O they to be dumb'd by the charm ! — so fluster'd 
with anger were they 



282 THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, 

They almost fell on each other; but after we sail'dj 
away. 

IV. 

And we came to the Isle of Shouting, we landed, a 

score of wild birds 
Cried from the topmost summit with human voices 

and words ; 
Once in an hour they cried, and whenever their 

voices peaPd 
The steer fell down at the plow and the harvest died 

from the field, 
And the men dropt dead in the valleys and half of 

the cattle went lame, 
And the roof sank in on the hearth, and the dwelling 

broke into flame ; 
And the shouting of these wild birds ran into the 

hearts of my crew. 
Till they shouted along with the shouting and seized 

one another and slew ; 
But I drew them the one from the other ; I saw that 

we could not stay, 
And we left the dead to the birds and we sail'd with 

our wounded away. 



And we came to the Isle of Flowers : their breath 

met us out on the seas. 
For the Spring and the middle Summer sat eac .1 01 

the lap of the breeze ; 



THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE. 283 

And the red passion-flower to the cliffs, and the 

dark-blue clematis, clung. 
And starr'd with a myriad blossom the long convol- 
vulus hung ; 
And the topmost spire of the mountain was lilies in 

lieu of snow, 
And the lilies like glaciers winded down, running 

out below 
Thro' the fire of the tulip and poppy, the blaze of 

gorse, and the blush 
Of millions of roses that sprang without leaf or a 

thorn from the bush ; 
And the whole isle-side flashing down from the peak 

without ever a tree 
Swept like a torrent of gems from the sky to the 

blue of the sea ; 
And we rolPd upon capes of crocus and vaunted our 

kith and our kin, 
And we wallow'd in beds of lilies, and chanted the 

triumph of Finn, 
Till each like a golden image was pollen'd from head 

to feet 
And each was as dry as a cricket, with thirst in the 

middle-day heat. 
Blossom and blossom, and promise of blossom, but 

never a fruit ! 
And we hated the Flowering Isle, as we hated the 

isle that was mute, 
And we tore up the flowers by the million and flung 

them in bight and bay, 



284 THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, hi 

And we left but a naked rock, and in anger we saiPd 
away. 



VI. 

And we came to the Isle of Fruits : all round from 

the cliffs and the capes, 
Purple or amber, dangled a hundred fathom of 

grapes, 
And the warm melon lay like a little sun on the 

tawny sand, 
And the fig ran up from the beach and rioted over 

the land, 
And the mountain arose like a jewelPd throne thro' 

the fragrant air. 
Glowing with all-colour'd plums and with golden 

masses of pear, 
And the crimson and scarlet of berries that flamed 

upon bine and vine, 
But in every berry and fruit was the poisonous pleas- 
ure of wine ; 
And the peak of the mountain was apples, the hugest 

that ever were seen, 
And they prest, as they grew, on each other, with 

hardly a leaflet between. 
And all of them redder than rosiest health or than 

utterest shame. 
And setting, when Even descended, the very sunset 

aflame ; 
And we stay'd three days, and we gorged and wt 

madden'd, till every one drew 



THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, 285 

His sword on his fellow to slay him, and ever they 

struck and they slew ; 
And myself, I had eaten but sparely, and fought till 

I sunder'd the fray, 
Then I bad them remember my father's death, and 

we saiPd away. 



And we came to the Isle of Fire : we were lured by 

the light from afar, 
For the peak sent up one league of fire to the North- 
ern Star ; 
Lured by the glare and the blare, but scarcely could 

stand upright, 
For the whole Isle shuddered and shook like a man 

in a mortal affright ; 
We were giddy besides with the fruits we had gorged, 

and so crazed tliat at last 
There were some leaped into the fire : and away we 

saiPd, and we past 
Over that undersea isle, where the water is clearer 

than air : 
Down we look'd : what a garden ! O bliss, what a 

Paradise there ! 
Towers of a happier time, low down in a rainbow 

deep 
Silent palaces, quiet fields of eternal sleep ! 
And three of the gentlest and best of my people, 

whate'er I could say. 
Plunged head down in the sea, and the Paradise 

trembled away. 



286 THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, 
VIII. 

And we came to the Bounteous Isle, where the 

heavens lean low on the land, 
And ever at dawn from the cloud glitter'd o'er us a 

sunbright hand, 
Then it open'd and dropt at the side of each man, 

as he rose from his rest, 
Bread enough for his need till the labourless day 

dipt under the West ; 
And we wander'd about it and thro' it. O never 

was time so good ! 
And we sang of the triumphs of Finn, and the 

boast of our ancient blood, 
And we gazed at the wandering wave as we sat by 

the gurgle of springs. 
And we chanted the songs of the Bards and the 

glories of fairy kings ; 
But at length we began to be weary, to sigh, and to 

stretch and yawn. 
Till we hated the Bounteous Isle and the sunbright 

hand of the dawn. 
For there was not an enemy near, but the w^hole 

green Isle was our own, 
And we took to playing at ball, and we took to 

throwing the stone, 
And we took to playing at battle, but that was a 

perilous play. 
For the passion of battle was in us, we slew and 

we sail'd away. 



THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE. 1^1 

IX. 

And we came to the Isle of Witches and heard 

their musical cry — 
** Come to us, O come, come " in the stormy red of 

a sky 
Dashing the fires and the shadows of dawn on the 

beautiful shapes, 
For a wild witch naked as heaven stood on each of 

the loftiest capes, 
And a hundred ranged on the rock like white sea- 
birds in a row. 
And a hundred gambolPd and pranced on the 

wrecks in the sand below. 
And a hundred splashM from the ledges, and 

bosom'd the burst of the spray. 
But I knew we should fall on each other, and hastily 

sail'd away. 



And we came in an evil time to the Isle of the 

Double Towers, 
One was of smooth-cut stone, one carved all over 

with flowers, 
But an earthquake always moved in the hollows 

under the dells, 
And they shock'd on each other and butted each 

other with clashing of bells. 
And the daws flew out of the Towers and jangled 

and wranded in vain, 



288 THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE. 

And the clash and boom of the bells rang into the 

heart and the brain, 
Till the passion of battle was on us, and all took 

sides with the Towers, 
There were some for the clean-cut stone, there were 

more for the carven flowers, 
And the wrathful thunder of God peal'd over us all 

the day, 
For the one half slew the other, and after we saiPd 

away. 

XI. 

And we came to the Isle of a Saint who had saiPd 

with St. Brendan of yore. 
He had lived ever since on the Isle and his winters 

were fifteen score. 
And his voice was low as from other worlds, and his 

eyes were sweet. 
And his white hair sank to his heels and his white 

beard fell to his feet, 
And he spake to me, *' O Maeldune, let be this pur- 
pose of thine ! 
Remember the words of the Lord when he told us 

'Vengeance is mine ! ' 
His fathers have slain thy fathers in war or in single 

strife. 
Thy fathers have slain his fathers, each taken a Ufe 

for a life. 
Thy father had slain his father, how long shall the 

murder last? 



THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, 289 

Go back to the Isle of Finn and suffer the Past to 

be Past.'' 
And we kiss'd the fringe of his beard and we pray'd 

as we heard him pray, 
And the Holy man he assoiPd us, and sadly we saiPd 

away. 

XII. 

And we came to the Isle we were blown from, and 

there on the shore was he, 
The man that had slain my father. I saw him and 

let him be. 
O weary was I of the travel, the trouble, the strife 

and the sin. 
When I landed again, with a tithe of my men, on 

the Isle of Finn. 



290 DE FRO FUND IS, 



DE PROFUNDIS: 

THE TWO GREETINGS. 
I. 

Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep. 

Where all that was to be, in all that was, 

WhirPd for a inillion aeons thro' the vast 

Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light — 

Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, 

Thro' all this changing world of changeless law, 

And every phase of ever-heightening life, 

And nine long months of antenatal gloom. 

With this last moon, this crescent — her dark orb 

Touch'd with earth's light — thou comes t, darling 

boy; 
Our own ; a babe in lineament and limb 
Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man ; 
Whose face and form are hers and mine in one, 
Indissolubly married like our love ; 
Live, and be happy in thyself, and serve 
This mortal race thy kin so well, that men 
May bless thee as we bless thee, O young life 
Breaking with laughter from the dark : and may 
The fated channel where thy motion lives 
Be prosperously shaped, and sway thy course 



DE PRO FUND IS. 291 

Along the years of haste and random youth 
Unshatter'd ; then full-current thro' full man ; 
And last in kindly curves, with gentlest fall, 
By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power, 
To that last deep where we and thou are still. 



II. 



Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep. 
From that great deep, before our world begins, 
Whereon the Spirit of God moves as he will — 
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep. 
From that true world within the world we see, 
Whereof our world is but the bounding shore — 
Out of the deep, Spirit, out of the deep, 
With this ninth moon, that sends the hidden sun 
Down yon dark sea, thou comest, darling boy. 



For in the world, which is not ours. They said 

" Let us make man '' and that which should be man, 

From that one light no man can look upon, 

Drew to this shore lit by the suns and moons 

And all the shadows. O dear Spirit half-lost 

In thine own shadow and this fleshly sign 

That thou art thou — who wailest being born 

And banish'd into mystery, and the pain 

Of this divisible-indivisible world 

Among the numerable-innumerable 



292 DE PROFUNDI S. 

Sun, sun, and sun, thro' finite-infinite space 

In finite-infinite Time — our mortal veil 

And shattered phantom of that infinite One, 

Who made thee unconceivably Thyself 

Out of His whole World-self and all in all — 

Live thou ! and of the grain and husk, the grape 

And ivyberry, choose ; and still depart 

From death to death thro' life and life, and find 

Nearer and ever nearer Him, who wrought 

Not Matter, nor the finite-infinite, 

But this main-miracle, that thou art thou, 

With power on thine own act and on the world. 



THE HUMAN CRY. 
I. 

Hallowed be Thy name — Halleluiah ! — 

Infinite Ideality! 

Immeasurable Reality! 

Infinite Personality ! 
Hallowed be Thy name — Halleluiah f 

II. 

We feel we are nothing — for all is Thou and in 

Thee; 
We feel we are something — that also has come 

from Thee ; 
We know we are nothing — but Thou wilt help us 

to be. 
Hallowed be Thy name — Halleluiah ! 



SONNETS. 

PREFATORY SONNET 

TO THE "NINETEENTH CENTURY." 

Those that of late had fleeted far and fast 

To touch all shores, now leaving to the skill 

Of others their old craft seaworthy still, 

Have charterM this; where, mindful of the past 

Our true co-mates regather round the mast ; 

Of diverse tongue, but with a common will 

Here, in this roaring moon of daffodil 

And crocus, to put forth and brave the blast; 

For some, descending from the sacred peak 

Of hoar high templed Faith, have leagued again 

Their lot with ours to rove the world about ; 

And some are wilder comrades, sworn to seek 

If any golden harbour be for men 

In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt. 



294 SONNETS. 



TO THE REV. W. H. BROOKFIELD. 

Brooks, for they calPd you so that knew you best. 
Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes, 
How oft we two have heard St. Mary's chimes ! 
How oft the Cantab supper, host and guest, 
Would echo helpless laughter to your jest ! 
How oft with him we paced that walk of limes. 
Him, the lost light of those dawn-golden times, 
Who loved you well ! Now both are gone to rest 
You man of humorous-melancholy mark. 
Dead of some inward agony — is it so? 
Our kindlier, trustier Jaques, past away! 
I cannot laud this life, it looks so dark : 
^Kias ovap — dream of a shadow, go — 
God bless you. I shall join you in a day. 



SONNETS, 295 



MONTENEGRO. 

They rose to where their sovran eagle sails, 
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, 
Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night 
Against the Turk ; whose inroad nowhere scales 
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails, 
And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight 
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight 
By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales. 
O smallest among peoples ! rough rock- throne 
Of Freedom ! warriors beating back the swarm 
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, 
Great Tsernogora ! never since thine own 
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm 
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers. 



296 SONNETS. 



TO VICTOR HUGO. 

Victor in Drama, Victor in Romance, 
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears, 
French of the French, and Lord of human tears ; 
Child-lover ; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance 
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance, 
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers ; 
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years 
As yet unbroken. Stormy voice of France ! 
Who dost not love our England — so they say ; 
I know not — ■ England, France, all man to be 
Will make one people ere man^s race be run : 
And I, desiring that diviner day. 
Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy 
To younger England in the boy my son. 



TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 



BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. 

CONSTANTINUS, King of the Scots, after having sworn al- 
legiance to Athelstan, allied himself with the Danes of Ire- 
land under Anlaf, and invading England, was defeated by 
Athelstan and his brother Edmund with great slaughter at 
Brunanburh in the year 937. 

I. 

1 Athelstan King, 
Lord among Earls, 
Bracelet-bestower and 
Baron of Barons, 
He with his brother, 
Edmund Atheling, 
Gaining a lifelong 
Glory in battle, 
Slew with th-e sword-edge 
There by Brunanburh, 
Brake the shield-wall, 

^ I have more or less availed myself of my son's prose translation 
of this poem in the Contemporary Review (November, 1876). 



298 BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. 

Hew'd the lindenwood,^ 
Hack'd the battleshield, 
Sons of Edward with hammered brands. 



Theirs was a greatness 
Got from their Grandsires — 
Theirs that so often in 
Strife with their enemies 
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their 
homes. 

III. 

Bow'd the spoiler, 

Bent the Scotsman, 

Fell the sbipcrews 

Doom'd to the death. 
All the field with blood of the fighters 

Flow'd, from when first the great 

Sun-star of morningtide, 

Lamp of the Lord God 

Lord everlasting, 
Glode over earth till the glorious creature 

Sank to his setting. 



IV. 



There lay many a man 
Marr'd by the javelin, 

1 Shields of lindenwood. 



BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH, 299 

Men of the Northland 
Shot over shield. 
There was the Scotsman 
Weary of war. 



We the West-Saxons, 

Long as the daylight 

Lasted, in companies 

Troubled the track of the host that we hated, 

Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grind- 

stone, 
Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us. 

VI. 

Mighty the Mercian, 
Hard was his hand-play, 
Sparing not any of 
Those that with Anlaf, 
Warriors over the 
Weltering waters 
Borne in the bark's-bosom, 
Drew to this island : 
Doom'd to the death. 

VII. 

Five younf. kings put asleep by the sword-stroke, 
Seven strong Earls of the army of Anlaf 
Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers, 
Shipmen and Scotsmen. 



300 BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. 

VIII. 

Then the Norse leader, 
Dire was his need of it, 
Few were his following, 
Fled to his warship : 
Fleeted his vessel to sea with the king in it, 
Saving his life on the fallow flood. 



IX. 



Also the crafty one, 

Constantinus, 

Crept to his North again, 

Hoar-headed hero ! 



Slender warrant had 

He to be proud of 

The welcome of war-knives — 

He that was reft of his 

Folk and his friends that had 

Fallen in conflict, 

Leaving his son too 

Lost in the carnage, 

Mangled to morsels, 

A youngster in war ! 

XI. 

Slender reason had 

He to be glad of 

The clash of the war-glaive — 



BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH, 301 

Traitor and trickster 
And spurner of treaties — 
He nor had Anlaf 
With armies so broken 
A reason for bragging 
That they had the better 
In perils of battle 
On places of slaughter — 
The struggle of standards, 
The rush of the javelins, 
The crash of the charges,^ 
The wielding of weapons — 
The play that they play'd with 
The children of Edward. 

XII. 

Then with their naiPd prows 

Parted the Norsemen, a 

Blood-redden'd relic of 

Javelins over 

The jarring breaker, the deep-sea billow, 

Shaping their way toward Dyflen^ again, 

Shamed in their souls. 

XIII. 

Also the brethren. 
King and Atheling, 
Each in his glory, 
Went to his own in his own West-Saxonland, 
Glad of the war. 

^ Lit. ** the gathering of men." 2 Dublin. 



302 BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. 

XIV. 

Many a carcase they left to be carrion, 
Many a livid one, many a sallow-skin — 
Left for the white-tail'd eagle to tear it, and 
Left for the horny-nibb'd raven to rend it, and 
Gave to the garbaging war-hawk to gorge it, and 
That gray beast, the wolf of the weald. 

XV. 

Never had huger 

Slaughter of heroes 

Slain by the sword-edge — 

Such as old writers 

Have writ of in histories — 

Hapt in this isle, since 

Up from the East hither 

Saxon and Angle from 

Over the broad billow 

Broke into Britain with 

Haughty war-workers who 

Harried the Welshman, when 

Earls that were lured by the 

Hunger of glory gat 

Hold of the land. 



ACHILLES OVER THE TRENCH 303 



ACHILLES OVER THE TRENCH. 

ILIAD, Xviii. 202. 

So saying, light-foot Iris pass'd away. 

Then rose Achilles dear to Zeus ; and round 

The warrior's puissant shoulders Pallas flung 

Her fringed aegis, and around his head 

The glorious goddess wreath'd a golden cloud, 

And from it lighted an all-shining flame. 

As when a smoke from a city goes to heaven 

Far off from out an island girt by foes, 

All day the men contend in grievous war 

From their own city, but with set of sun 

Their fires flame thickly, and aloft the glare 

Flies streaming, if perchance the neighbours round 

May see, and sail to help them in the war ; 

So from his head the splendour went to heaven. 

From wall to dyke he stept, he stood, nor joined 

The Achaeans — honouring his wise mother's word — - 

There standing, shouted, and Pallas far away 

Caird ; and a boundless panic shook the foe. 

For like the clear voice when a trumpet shrills, 

Blown by the fierce beleaguerers of a town, 

So rang the clear voice of ^akides ; 

And when the brazen cry of ^akides 



304 ACHILLES OVER THE TRENCH 

Was heard among the Trojans, all their hearts 
Were troubled, and the fiill-maned horses whirl'd 
The chariots backward, knowing griefs at hand ; 
And sheer-astounded were the charioteers 
To see the dread, unweariable lire 
That always o'er the great Peleion's head 
Burn'd, for the bright-eyed goddess made it burn. 
Thrice from the dyke he sent his mighty shout, 
Thrice backward reePd the Trojans and allies ; 
And there and then twelve of their noblest died 
Among their spears and chariots. 



TRANSLATIONS, ETC. 305 



TO PRINCESS FREDERICA ON HER 
MARRIAGE. 

O YOU that were eyes and light to the King till he 
past away 
From the darkness of life — 
He saw not his daughter — he blest her : the blind 
King sees you to-day, 
He blesses the wife. 



SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

ON THE CENTOTAPH IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

Not here ! the white North has thy bones ; and thou, 

Heroic sailor-soul, 
Art passing on thine happier voyage now 

Toward no earthly pole. 



306 TO DANTE, 



TO DANTE. 

(written at request of the FLORENTINES.) 

King, that hast reign'd six hundred years, and 

grown 
In power, and ever growest, since thine own 
Fair Florence honouring thy nativity, 
Thy Florence now the crown of Italy, 
Hath sought the tribute of a verse from me, 
I, wearing but the garland of a day, 
Cast at thy feet one flower that fades away. 



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